


Turnabout

by roxymissrose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s01e18 Something Wicked, M/M, Mention of Minor Character Death, Non-Penetrative Sex, POV Sam Winchester, boys raised apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 05:48:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15017990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxymissrose/pseuds/roxymissrose
Summary: Sam's been the quiet one all his life; the shy, steady one. Until his whole quiet, ordered life spins out of control with the appearance of the brother he hadn't seen in years, not since he'd been locked up for the murder of their father...and the attempted murder of a young Sam.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2018 Spn_j2_bigbang. This was inspired by Eric Kripke's original pilot script.
> 
> Thanks so much to firesign10, for her hand-holding and encouragement. Thanks so much for talking me through another BB!  
> And many thanks to my artist, Yanyann, it was lovely working with you again!

**Part One**  
_Shee-shirck...chunk-chunk..._

"Nhu…" Sam's eyes fluttered open. He felt the oddest sensation, as if the hair on the nape of his neck was standing up. It sent creepy little shivers through him...but what had woken him was a sound, something out of the ordinary. He listened hard for a minute, but it didn't repeat so he reached backward, searching the bed for Jess. She wasn't there; her side wasn't even warm. He stared into the darkness, frowning, before common sense caught up with him.

 _She's in the bathroom, dolt._ He smiled slightly at his instant anxious response—milder these days than they'd been when he was younger. Mom had insisted his panic attacks were something he'd grow out of, and she'd been pretty much right. 

He turned in the bed, digging back under the covers with a sigh, ready to drop back into sleep, when it occurred to him—there was no light coming from the bathroom. The bathroom was in plain view from the open bedroom doorway, and it was dark, no light rimming the bottom of the door. And while that chunk-chunk sound was the ancient radiators trying to push out heat, that other noise he'd heard definitely sounded...sneaky.

Sam slid out of bed, grabbing the bat he kept at his bedside—his pet Louisville Slugger, Jess called it. Whatever. Having the bat at hand let him sleep at night, had helped him feel safe since he was a little kid. Besides, even Jess had to admit the neighborhood they lived in was a little—a lot—sketchy.

He padded out into the hallway, tip-toeing as quietly as a stealthy mouse, for once not tripping over his bike where it leaned against the hallway wall. Enjoying that little victory, he sneaked into the living room-slash-kitchen doorway, flexing his arms and gearing up to swing the hell out of the bat. Whatever poor sucker was breaking into the Mazur-Moore apartment, they were about to find out that Sam worked out, thank you very damn much. 

Sam lowered the bat to his shoulder. He was ninety-nine percent sure it was just Jess grazing through the leftover Chinese from dinner, but he probably shouldn't call her name. Just in case. Didn't want to tip off anyone, especially anyone desperate enough to try and rob a student's crummy place….

He glanced into the big room, but the fridge door was closed, and the blueish-gray light from the street lamps outside revealed the room to be empty.

"Jess?" he whisper-yelled into the room, like not yelling it loudly would make a difference.

_CHUNK-CHUNK_

He jumped, the freaking hot water running through the pipes almost giving him a heart attack. He took a deep breath, listened to the total silence—and the creaky pipes—and giggled at himself. What a paranoid little fuck he wa— _"Holy fuck!"_

A shadow detached itself from the wall and lunged straight for him, hands shooting out to catch Sam's arms and whirling him around, sending Louie flying into the dark, where the bat fetched up against something with a hollow, wooden clunk. He had a crazy moment of hoping it hadn't hit any of Jess' million and one tchotchkes, and then the hands tightened on him, pulled him closer to whoever had a hold on him--

"No!" Sam yelled, trying to rip his arms out of the bastard's grip, struggling to remember what he'd learned that one time he took a self-defense class but quit because the guy had been huge, with a thick, salt-and-pepper beard and big, thick, muscles under his skin-tight t-shirt. He'd scared Sam more than the nebulous threat of some asshole trying to mug him someday—

"Let go, you fuck!" He and his attacker both staggered when a rag rug slid under their feet. Sam took advantage of it and kicked the shit out of the guy's shin, putting his heart and soul into it and ignoring the crackling sounds his toes made. It hurt, but it was worth it. A low voice spit, "Fuck," and the guy's grip weakened for a moment as his leg buckled. Sam had a moment of triumph before _bam_ he was on his back; in fact, he was spread-eagled on the kitchen floor under some potential killer, someone who was _laughing_ in his goddamn face, the punk.

Said punk dropped his head down onto Sam's shoulder, and Sam froze. This was...weird. There was a strange guy between his legs, in a fucked up parody of intimacy. Sam shuddered, suddenly too aware that the guy smelled like leather and sweat, that he was heavy, and Sam was only wearing a shabby pair of tissue-thin sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt. He could feel the heat radiating off the guy, and some fucked up corner of his mind was volunteering that the punk's crotch was particularly hot and thick, which freaked Sam the hell out, along with pissing him off. This was terrifying, and frankly, mortifying. He wanted desperately to crawl out from under this possible ax-murderer. He wanted to sink through the floor when for some ungodly reason, his dick started to take notice.

Sam opened his eyes wider—not that he'd ever closed them like a little girl hoping that it was all a dream, nope, nope—and noticed the guy was half an inch from his face. Too close to make out anything but his eyes. They were green...or looked green in the dim light. What the hell, Sam asked himself, what was wrong with him, for gods sake, that he even noticed that? What the hell was happening to him? 

Punk smiled into his face. It was more than a smile, really. It was a look of...of awe, like Sam had done more than let his pathetic ass get kicked in his own apartment.

"Sam?" 

The guy spoke his name. His name! He was a murderous stalker, or maybe a stalking murderer and _he knew Sam's name!_ Or maybe he'd read Sam's name off the bell, Jesus, he'd _known_ that was a bad idea when they'd done it. "Get off me! Who the fuck do you—no, get OFF!" Sam yelled, bucked up hard as he could, certain that he'd throw the guy off. The asshole didn't even budge, just looked vaguely guilty and shamefaced.

"Sam—"

"Don't call me that!"

The guy's face fell for a second, before he smiled slightly. "Okay, fair enough, it's been a few years. You don't remember me, I get it," but the tone of his voice said something else. Sam got the sense that this stranger was disappointed. "Look, I'm going to get up. Promise not to try to kill me if I do?"

"I'm calling the cops," Sam shouted before thinking it through. _Really? Tell the axe-murderer you're going to call the cops a little louder, why don't you?_ Sam chastised himself.

"Dude…" the guy said, and then felt around in the dark, bringing Louie up for Sam to see. Sam instantly went still and silent. The guy rolled off of him, and walked backwards to the wall, feeling around behind himself with his free hand for a light switch. He flicked it, and one of the crappy little wall sconces came on, eking out a little ocher light. It was just enough light to let a body walk around the room without tripping over the bigger pieces of street-harvested furniture. The sconces sucked balls; Jess and he had argued a gazillion times about how stupid those lamps were. House stuff should be practical, not _"Oh my god, how completely sweet is that—"_

Sam shoved the goofy part of his brain down and concentrated on the fact that he was being held hostage in his own living-kitchen-room. Crappy as the lamp was, his eyesight blurred with the sudden light anyway and he blinked madly to clear them. The guy stayed put, and when Sam could see clearly, he bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a noise.

This guy was...wow. Sam was definitely not into guys, but this guy was...wow. How do you look like that, and end up doing this, he wondered? Not enough underwear ads to shoot?

The guy grinned. "C'mon, Sam, get up off the floor. Come here, sit down."

Sam hurried to do what the guy wanted—no sense in pissing him off, seeing as he was the one with the bat in hand. He settled himself on the couch, nudging a stack of textbooks out of the way. He managed not to grab Jess' grandma's afghan off the couch back and pull it around himself like a security blanket, but it was close.

"So...I wish it didn't have to be like this," the guy said, "but I couldn't figure out any other way to do it. I guess you don't remember me, but I'm Dean. Your big brother."

 _Dean? Dean?_ Sam gaped at the guy. Dean..."Dean?" Sam felt like he was on a hamster wheel made of glass. He couldn't stop repeating the word...Dean. Dean who'd tried to kill him, _had_ killed their father; holy fuck, he was at the mercy of a patricide, a murderer, the child-killer who'd tried to murder Sam when Sam was just a defenseless little kid.

The air twisted around him, coiling up tighter and tighter in his chest. He—Dean—the killer was supposed to have been imprisoned for life—what—how was he here now? Black spots crowded out the light, the air coiled in his chest went solid as rock, he heaved and heaved but nothing came up. Tremors rocked him, shaking the table. Across from him, the guy, the supposed-to-be his brother, stared at him, a frown drawing his eyebrows tight. "Sam? Sammy?"

Sam managed to push words past the block in his throat. "D-don't kill me," he gasped, and the man jumped back, hands going out to shield himself, as if Sam had threatened to kill _him_ instead.

"Sam, it's me, your brother!"

Yeah, exactly, that's what he was afraid of. Sam felt himself sliding sideways into the dark, terror following him down, _no, no, no_ on a repeat loop in his head.

He came to still on the couch. The— _Dean—_ was sitting in the chair opposite him, shadows obscuring his expression. His tiny studio apartment looked even tinier with the guy hulking in the shadows, taking up air. He had a picture frame in his hand—Sam's only picture of his bio mother and father. He quickly glanced up and saw that Mom and Dad were untouched, still hanging in their place on the wall behind the chair. "Don't touch that," he snapped and cursed himself again. Was he trying to get this psycho to kill him?

Dean looked sad, and lay the picture face-down on the table. "I'm not here to kill you," he said.

"Oh sure then, it's all okay, I'm feeling safe as can be _—you killed my father!"_

"I'm not going to kill you," Dean said, like that was really going to sooth Sam's terror—and fury. "You just don't understand. Not yet."

"I'll never understand," Sam shouted. "How could you—you were a _kid!_ And you killed--" 

Dean dropped his head, his hand rubbing hard against his forehead, "Just...shut up, okay? Just, just shut up for a moment."

Sam wedged himself against the couch back, fought off another panic attack by blinking hard to center himself. He was counting blinks and his heart was slowing down until a sudden terrifying thought almost brought him off the couch.

_Where was Jess?_

The realization hit him like a physical blow. Jess wasn't here. Where was she? "Where's Jess, you sonofabitch? I swear to god, if you hurt Jess, I'll fucking kill you!"

"I haven't touched her—her, right?" Dean asked, and Sam glared at him. What was that supposed to mean? Did he think Sam was gay?

Dean smiled a little, like Sam's affront amused him, the bastard. The smile dropped and he told Sam, "We didn't see anyone here but you. I don't know anything about a Jess." He took his phone out, flipped it open and punched some buttons. Frowning as he looked down, eventually he shook his head, and slid it back into his pocket. 

"Not like Mr. _I-got-this-ya-idjit_ Singer to fuck up like that," he muttered quietly.

"What do you know about my girlfriend, you fucking stalker freak? I'm not kidding, I will—" Sam scrambled up off the couch, ramming his knees into the rattan coffee table. A candle rocked and fell over, Sam's books, Jess' sketchbook, all of it sliding to the floor. Dean didn't move, he just gently tapped the Louisville Slugger against his knee and stared Sam in the eye. Sam could see the guy was getting angry but trying to tamp it down—he'd seen the same expression on Jess plenty of times. The guy finally dropped his eyes and laughed, a bitter little bark.

"Now, Sam. Is that anyway to talk to your big brother?"

"You're not, you can't be…" Sam knew the unspoken _'I don't want you to be'_ vibrated in the air between them.

"Sorry, kid. I'm Dean Winchester, and you're Sam Winchester, my baby brother."

Baby brother. The words made Sam want to throw up. "I'm Sam Mazur, and all I know about you is that you're batshit crazy."

"Okay," Dean leaned back into the chair, eyes narrowed, dark underneath them. He looked exhausted, like he was only keeping his eyes open by sheer force of will. "Okay." 

He got up, Sam flinched back as he walked past him. Dean picked up the fallen books and papers and Jess' candle, and dropped them on the table, ignoring the way Sam jumped. He flicked on all the lights in the place, killing the shadows. He came back to the chair, giving Sam a better look at the whack job who claimed he was his brother and holy shit. No way they were related, this guy, this fucking, insane Dean Winchester really was hot as hell. Shit, straight as Sam was, even he could see this guy was, holy fuck, movie star handsome: light brown hair done in some aggressive, macho haircut that highlighted his jaw and high cheekbones, full, dark lips, wide shoulders...his eyes were green, and Sam shuddered when he saw them; they were just the shade that Sam had always had a thing for.

Dean dropped down into the chair again. When he saw that Sam hadn't moved so much as an inch, he raised an eyebrow and shook his head, like Sam had somehow disappointed him. He pulled an old-fashioned, military-style lighter out of his jacket pocket, started flicking it open and shut repeatedly.

Sam gaped at him. The full light, with Dean parked right across from him, showed him something else as well. Dean was scary. He was beautiful and _scary._ Sam swallowed, and chased _beautiful_ out of his head. Right now, he was really glad that Jess wasn't here, because Dean was obviously a nut job. The guy had weird looking tats up and down his neck, and some piercings in his ear, too, that looked wild. A skull...and maybe a trident? A weird star and a squiggly thing, and...oh fuck. Dean was a devil worshiper.

Oh god. That was it. He _had_ come to kill Sam, to perform some kind of satanic rite over his body. He eyed the blank spot where Jess' crucifix had hung, until some drunken night he didn't remember, he'd knocked it off the wall and broke it. Why wasn't it hanging there now that he could use it—

And do what with it, beat Dean unconscious with a little bit of wood-look plastic?

Dean was silent, just sitting in the ratty orange chair, playing with that silver lighter and...staring at him, smiling softly, like he couldn't get enough of Sam. And Sam...Sam startled when he realized he actually remembered that look on Dean's face. The memory unfolded like a kid's paper fortune-teller; a smaller, softer, face, bigger eyes, thinner nose, longer, blonder hair...freckles. Sam swallowed. He hadn't thought about his brother in years, not really. If asked, he'd have said he remembered nothing about him, just vague, pale images of a blond kid...who'd wanted to kill him. 

_What happened back then?_ Sam wondered, _Why did you want to hurt me?_

"Okay. So. I'm your brother. Whether you like it or not. And yeah. I killed our Dad. In a way."

Sam stared, stared, stared, like his eyes were frozen open. It was like Dean was in some other room talking to some other guy, because Sam was here, and the only thing he could hear now was his own breath from a long, long way away, his heart beating wildly out of time. He scrambled over the back of the couch, knocking pillows awry, crashing into the piles of books stacked behind the couch. 

He had to get out, he had to get away; he was running for the hallway, running for his life, but this time around, he didn't miraculously avoid the bike—he hit it. He collided with the wall, and the bike's old fashioned rat-trap pedals ripped a streak down his shin, breaking skin through the too-thin old sweatpants. "Shit, shit," he moaned, crawling towards the door, fear killing any embarrassment as he screamed like a baby for help.

"Fuck!" 

He heard Dean curse as he hit the bike as well, but of course, the bastard managed to leap over it like a fucking gazelle, leather coat flowing out like a motherfucking cape, son of a bitch.

Sam made it to the door, ready to fling it open but the chain was still on— _how the fuck had Dean gotten into his apartment?_ and it flung him back. He could hear the downstairs neighbor shout something about shutting the fuck up, it was ass-crack in the morning. Sam grabbed an umbrella from the coat-hooks, and through some incredible confluence of sheer desperation and dumb luck, managed to connect with Dean's temple just as he grabbed him. Sam felt Dean's hold weaken, felt a split second of victory—and then he saw Dean's face. 

_Really_ saw Dean's face.

His lips were thinned, drawn back, baring white, white teeth, his eyes were snapping; there was no sign of the almost fond look he'd worn through the evening; it was gone like it never existed. Sam was looking into a deadly stranger's eyes, one whose whole body radiated rage and the capability of delivering a world of hurt. A thin rill of blood snaked down his temple, outlining his cheek...somehow, Sam had gotten a solid hit in. He also got a glimpse of Dean's fist drawing back, the light glinting off something thin and silvery clenched in it—

"Nooo," Sam moaned, he didn't want to die, not like this, spread out in his dingy hallway, where Jess would open the door and find his corpse...he didn't want his brother to kill him...all the nightmares he'd ever had, coming true right there. He felt a stabbing pain, followed by something soft settling on his cheek. A feeling of loss followed him under.

"God, I'm so sorry, Sammy," he heard dimly—Dean's voice soaked with apology and sadness.

~o0o~

Darkness….Sam rolled to the side, and his head smacked up against a solid, cold surface. His eyes fluttered open; through glass, he saw what might be trees flashing by in the darkness. Something smooth under him, cold where his hands lay. He could feel a gentle rocking, there was a sound like...tires on the road. He was in a car. The smell of close quarters well used filled his nose: take-out, sweat, musty carpet, and pine-scented car trees. "Uuunhhhg," rolled out of his mouth—it was supposed to be, 'where am I?" but his tongue sort of flopped around uselessly and he couldn't feel his lips.

"Hey, hey, relax, Sammy, you're safe."

Safe? Kidnapped by his insane brother who tried to kill him, oh, but no, he was safe. Sam blinked back a terrified tear, fell into the memory of how Dean had tried to kill him—but it wouldn't come, not like before. He saw a kid, barely taller than the dresser he was pushed up against, and saw his Dad...swinging a gun towards Dean? Sam blinked again, and a black cloud covered Dad and Dean. Sam reared away from the window, catching sight of his reflection in the glass, but he was seeing Dean's face, fake little Dean, who a lonely Sam used to pretend in daydreams, loved him and treated him like a treasure. Sam dropped back to the window, a rolling fog of exhaustion pulling him down again. He heard Dean's voice, again, and felt his hand drift over his cheek, the multiple bracelets on Dean's wrist tickling him.

"Sleep, Sam. Nothing we gotta do until we're there."

But where was there, Sam wondered muzzily before gratefully giving in to the pull.

~o0o~

They were in a motel. He'd seen some crummy motels in his time—hey, he was a student, after all—but this one took the prize.

They were in a narrow, dingy room. There were two doubles separated by a flimsy particleboard nightstand, a single lamp that tried to throw some light, but it was an uphill fight against the dark brown black-out drapes.

He moved his head and winced; it ached like he'd taken a kick from a mule. He ran fingers over the back of his head, and yeah, he found a small lump, but no blood, nothing to write home about. He'd given himself worse getting out of the shower. He smacked his lips, rolled his head carefully, slowly, on his shoulders—and froze. There in a chair across from him was Dean. Well, of course he'd be there, Dean was the one who'd stolen him from home. This waking up to Dean was getting to be a really horrible habit.

"You drugged me," Sam snapped, anger overriding fear—until it came back in an avalanche. "You stabbed me with a, a needle full of _drugs!_ Did you—oh my god, did you—?" 

Horror shot painful spikes throughout his body. He was afraid to move, to find out that, oh god, no…he moved carefully, afraid to find that he'd been assaulted while he'd been out….

Dean fixed him with that expression of concern mixed with worry that was becoming all too familiar a look on him. He stood abruptly, frowning when Sam yelped and jumped back. "What's wrong, dude?" 

He studied Sam, and Sam couldn't help sliding his hands under his ass, lip trembling...after a second Sam could see the light bulb blinking on for Dean, sparing Sam from having to spell it out.

"Oh, fuck, ew!" Concern morphed into horrified disgust. _"Brothers,_ you sick asshole! Besides the fact that you were fucking _unconscious!"_

Sam gaped at this bizarre person calling himself his brother. Really? He was offended that Sam thought Dean wouldn't care about lack of consent, which was a fucking laugh seeing that he'd _kidnapped_ Sam. And not only that—"You did drug me, though!"

"Just a little," Dean said, and had the nerve to give him a wide-eyed, apologetic look. "I wouldn't have drugged you if I thought I could get you out without a fuss."

"How does you telling me that make it better?" Sam shook his head, biting his lip. He tried not to be obvious about scoping out the room, looking for a door, a window that opened, anything. Dean watched him look and just smiled, it was a blank, empty smile that did fuck-all to comfort Sam. Sam dropped his eyes...he was still in his tatty t-shirt and torn sweat pants, with an obvious streak of blood down one leg, and no shoes. Great. They were in the kind of place where his ensemble didn't raise an eyebrow, apparently. As far as Sam could tell, Dean was still and calm in his chair.

So, there was no possibility of escape unless he could knock Dean out—and remembering their fight made him cross that off the list—or sneak out some other way. Maybe the bathroom had a window.

"How about some water?" Dean asked, and headed to the bathroom. Sam glanced in the open doorway; no window visible. Looking back at the room's door, he did a double take. Dean was busy in the bathroom and he was here alone and the motherfucking door was unlocked.

He jumped off the bed and sprinted across the room, slamming the door open and racing across the parking lot, praying all the way it wasn't a pit full of broken glass (and used needles, judging by the looks of the place). He put his head down and put his whole soul into it. He'd almost gone out for track at Stanford, and he knew he was fast.

Feet pounding across the cold asphalt, Sam ran for all he was worth towards his goal—the thin line of shrubs at the far end of the lot.

He didn't hear anything behind him, but wasn't stupid enough to waste time looking. He felt gravel shift under his feet, gave a jump when he reached the curb, and landed on cool grass. Another push took him across the grass strip and closer to the shrubs. He could see the highway through them. If he got out to the highway, for sure somebody would stop. Dean at least wouldn't pursue him out there, not without risking getting caught himse—

Sam hit the ground hard, impact headache crashing through his brain and leaving him momentarily blind and deaf.

"Good showing, kid, but no one's ever got past me."

Sam went straight from survival mode into major-freak out. He was done, he was screwed, this maniac was going to strangle him or knife him or do something equally deadly. He threw his head back and started screaming. Or would have anyway—he barely got out one shriek before Dean clocked him, wrapped his open hand around Sam's mouth and squeezed it shut. 

"You can scream all you want, Cinderella, but this joint is full of assholes screaming all the time."

Sam fought against his damn brain wanting to check out—he struggled against Dean's hold, but he had to admit finally that he'd lost. Dean was the winner, and it was only a matter of whether Dean iced him in the parking lot or in the motel room. A harsh whisper yanked him out of his misery.

"Damn it, Sammy, how many times I gotta tell ya, I'm not tryin' to hurt you. Or kill you, for fuck's sake. Now please, get up and come back to the room. You can get away with a lot in these dumps, but sooner or later, someone's gonna find their balls and come looking—and we might not like it."

Sam stiffened, then nodded. Dean helped him up, and turned him back to the room, all without letting Sam's mouth loose. Talented, he thought bitterly.

Back in the ashtray-scented room, Sam sat on the uncomfortably slick comforter, his foot propped up on the room's trashcan. Apparently, adrenaline helped to mask the sensation of broken glass embedding itself in a foot. He bit his lip, and manfully struggled not to cry. This was one of the worst nights of his life, almost as bad as the night he'd watched his big brother kill his dad. And now he was stuck in a motel room with that killer, who at the moment was crouching over his foot as he carefully, almost fucking reverently, cleaned and bandaged it.

A tear escaped Sam—his control was fading fast—and dripped off his chin, darkening a little spot on his sweatpants leg. He was confused about what was happening, and exhausted with fighting fear. It was all too fucking much. He broke. 

"I don't even know what happened to Jess," he howled. "Why won't you tell me what you did to her? You keep saying you aren't going to kill me, so…" he sobbed, his voice catching, and the shame of crying in front of this murderer made him cover his face. "Did you hurt her? Please, tell me."

Dean leaned back, rubbed his hands on the alcohol-soaked gauze, dropped it in the bowl of water by his knee.

"Sam...look, I never touched her, okay? As far as me and Uncle Bobby knew, you had no one." He held up his hand, even though Sam hadn't opened his mouth, and said, "I'll explain about Bobby later. We saw you, plenty of times, even if I—we—didn't always get what we were seeing. But...never saw a girlfriend. She wasn't there when I checked your place out, I didn't get a sense of her."

Dean got up, lowered Sam's foot gently to the carpet. He picked up the trashcan and walked it back to the desk. "I've got a lot to tell you, and you're not going to believe any of it. That's why I'd rather wait until we get to Missouri's first." He took the bowl to the bathroom and dumped it. Sam gingerly put weight on his foot. It wasn't bad, so he stood, and followed Dean to the bathroom while keeping as much space as possible between them.

"We're going to Missouri? Why, what's in Missouri?"

"No, we're not...Missouri the person, not the state. She's based in Kansas, where my— _our_ —mother died."

Sam's eyes went wide with horror as he backed away from Dean. "You killed her too…"

"No, you idiot, I was fucking four years old when she died!" Dean shouted, the last bit of his patience burned off, Sam guessed. Well, excuse him for not being able to keep his terror to himself. "God! I didn't kill anyone in our family, okay? I don't give a fuck what you were told—I didn't purposely kill _anyone!"_

Dean reached out for him, and Sam flinched at his touch. He pushed Sam back on the bed, and Sam scrambled backwards up to the headboard, not taking his eyes off Dean for one second. He watched Dean raise his face to the ceiling, mutter something. He saw that Dean's eyes were glassy, the way his chin wobbled for a moment, and for some insane reason felt a pinprick of guilt. 

"Can you just—Sam, can you just go to sleep? Just...be quiet, okay?" Dean turned away, grabbed a broken-down, old duffle bag from the other bed and slammed through the bathroom door.

"Jesus," Sam whispered. "What am I gonna do? How do I get out of this…?" His foot was raw and painful, but Dean had cleaned it gently, and pressed bandages on it as carefully as he could. Sam was confused, but beginning to believe maybe he might survive this after all...Dean did seem to care, in some way. Dean was careful with him, even though he'd kidnapped him. Right, right, _kidnapped._ Loving brothers probably didn't kidnap each other—he might be an only child, but he was pretty sure that was not one of the ways that siblings pranked each other….

~o0o~

Sam opened his eyes, blinking slowly and peering around.

Waking up to terror was getting old. He was somewhere he didn't know, in what looked to be the world's crummiest motel, with the hottest—and scariest—guy he'd ever seen in his life. And he was hungry enough to eat the bed he was...handcuffed to? What the everloving fuck? 

"FUCK."

He automatically yanked against the restraint, and the cuffs bit in, drawing a yelp out of him. God damn it! He was cuffed to the crappy bed, he had to piss like a racehorse, and where the fuck was Dean? 

He pulled again, yanked and shook the metal bracelet. He pulled hard, until the pain made him stop. TV had told him often enough that he wouldn't be able to pull the handcuff loose. Sam remembered something involving the main character using blood as a lubricant, and slipping his hand out of the cuffs...or was it that he broke, or dislocated his thumb and then bled and then pulled loose..."Oh, _fuck_ me." 

Yeah, none of that was happening. Sure, he could pull until the metal cut, but that wasn't going to be easy to do. They were pretty well made...plus, he doubted he could break his thumb without choking to death on his own vomit, and he didn't have the first idea as to how to dislocate his thumb, but he was sure he wouldn't survive that either….

He had a hand between his legs and his lip pinned in his teeth by the time Dean came back.

"Hey, Sammy, you hungry—oh shit," he gasped and turned bright red, "Sorry for walking in on you like that" —and then smacked his forehead.

"Oh damn, man, I'm sorry!" He tossed a grease-spotted white bag on the table, and quickly unlocked the cuffs.

Sam leaped up and dashed for the bathroom, ignoring the stupid laughter coming out of Dean's fat face. He kneed the door shut, yanked his pants down and groaned loudly, pointing the stream at the back of the bowl, sighing when the urgency to empty his bladder eased. "Damn. Ugh," he moaned. Being able to finally pee had to rank right up there in the World's Top Ten Good Feelings, he thought.

"Sam? There's a toothbrush in there for you, and some toothpaste...they got little bars of soap, and the towels don't look too sketchy."

Sam saw what Dean was talking about. Took the time to brush, and to wash his face and pits and ass. He grimaced at putting the filthy t-shirt back on and looked down at the horrible sweatpants. God, he didn't want to wear them anymore. He wished he had clean clothes—and some fucking _shoes--_

There was a tap-tap at the door. "Okay to come in?"

"I—hold on." Sam eased the door open, peered through the narrow opening.

"Here...you probably want this stuff. And, not for nothing dude, take a real shower. You're, ah, a little sweaty and, ah, aromatic. You know?"

Sam looked down at what was poking into the doorway. A bag, with...clothes? He snatched it. "Fuck you," he muttered. A kidnapper telling him he stunk. Sam's lip quivered, the goofy part of his brain rolled over and giggled. _You do stink dude, can't argue there._ He giggled himself, and looked up in time to catch a hopeful eye staring at him.

"I hope this is the right stuff...I brought food too, when you get out."

He shut the door while Sam was still standing there, nodding. He looked in the bag. Oh, god. The guy had raided his closet while he was unconscious. A shiver of horror ran down Sam's back. Christ...there were a pair of sneakers, some socks, underwear...the guy had gone through his _underwear drawer…._  
Sam flipped through the boxers folded on top of the clothes in the bag. It looked like Dean had just grabbed the first layer of stuff in his drawer, he hadn't picked and chosen. That did make him feel marginally better.

He sighed, and sat on the closed toilet, opened the bag wider. There were a few pairs of jeans balled up, a couple of t-shirts. His Stanford hoodie, the first thing he'd bought himself, a kinda lame symbol of his new-found independence. He loved the stupid thing.

"You are _so_ fucking lame." Sam shook his head. Pulled the next item out of the bag. Hunh. One of Jess' plaid shirts, for fuck's sake. His eyes filled. She was probably scared shitless right now. The bathroom light reflected from something shiny in the bag...that small picture of his bio mom and dad. Sam ground the tears out of his eyes—no damn time to cry now—and dumped the rest of the bag onto the floor, hoping for a wallet, his cellphone, something. Nothing. Of course.

He had no options, so he did what Dean said to do, showered and put fresh clothes on. He washed his hair, worked the tangles out of his hair with a comb and the cheap conditioner the motel offered. Personally, he was stunned that there even was conditioner, soap, and shampoo in the crappy little room. He tried not to imagine how cheap and horrible all that stuff must be...pictured huge vats of crummy shampoo being siphoned into the teeny bottles. He wondered if Dean had purposely not given him shaving stuff. Maybe he was afraid that Sam would make a Bic into a weapon. If that was the case, the guy was giving him way too much credit. 

"Sam! Your food's getting cold!"

Sam hurried out of the bathroom, leaving weird brain farts and his ragged clothes in the room.

~o0o~

Dean had the table laid out with takeout containers of the biggest breakfast Sam had ever seen: thick slices of French toast, hash browns, bacon. It was more food than he usually ate in days. And sitting on his side of the table was a big fruit cup, with actual fresh fruit in it. He stared at Dean, wondering how he knew that he liked fruit. He'd never been all that thrilled about meat and grease. Maybe...maybe it was something Dean remembered about him? It was a really uncomfortable thought.

"Looked like something you'd like." Dean shrugged and pushed the fruit closer. "When I first moved in with Uncle Bobby, Bobby Singer—you probably don't remember him—I couldn't get enough home-cooked meals and fruit, man. It was like Treat Day every day. Worst part of constantly bein' on the road was all that fast food shit." He looked up and caught the odd look Sam couldn't keep off his face. "Yeah, you don't remember. We fucking lived on takeout and gas station food for fuck...six years, six years of never enough food, and shitty food when we got it…" 

He shook his head, and Sam tentatively asked, "Is..is that why? Because he didn't take good care of us?"

Dean refused to look at Sam. "Eat your breakfast. Shut up."

Sam forced the food down like Dean told him. Besides, it made perfect sense. Sam had no idea when he'd eat again, so best to take advantage of it.

They ate in silence, no sound except the slam of car doors and people coming and going from the rooms. Sam had almost cleared his container of food, bacon and all, before muttering, "Thanks for bringing my clothes with. And, y'know...the picture. It's the only one I have." He glanced over at Dean, and caught the way his face lit up.

"Well, yeah. Had to bring your picture...sorry I forgot that other one." He reached out to Sam, almost touching him, before grabbing his mug instead. "Gotta take care of you, Sam, " he replied softly.

Sam swallowed hard to keep from choking on his food. He concentrated on the last of his French toast like it was a test, struggling to keep a lid on what he was feeling—until it exploded out of him. _"Why?_ Why are you doing this to me? What do you want with me?"

"Look, I know you're freaked out; you think you know what kind of person I am, but you don't. What I'm trying to do is keep you safe, and I can't do that in Cali. I'm so fucking sorry, but we're not going to ruin your life, just...put it on hold for a bit."

"Right." Sam couldn't bury the flash of skepticism, couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Right, you're not going to hurt me, no, but you're going to fuck up my life," he snarled at Dean, held his hand up with index finger and thumb almost touching, "but just a little bit." 

He switched fingers so he was flipping Dean off, and Dean just rolled his eyes. "You'll see," he said. "Everything is going to make sense later. I know it felt like you were safe, but you were in...a web. A bad place. I know you're good…"

Sam frowned. Dean's voice had dropped so he barely made that out. _'I know you're good.' What did that mean?_ Yeah, he was a good guy...well, okay, he was decent, he tried not to be an asshole. "Where are you taking me?"

"Kansas. Take us 'bout four days or so...try and think of it as a road trip with your big brother."

He grinned, and Sam shuddered, his stomach rolled. All he knew about big brothers was frightening and world-ending. He prayed with everything he had that Dean meant it when he said he didn't want to hurt him. 

"We don't have the leisure to stop anywhere interesting on the way, but I'll try to make it as good as I can for you, okay? Lots of food stops—already told Missouri that it'll probably take the whole four days." He made an expression that on another person not nuts would be cute. "She said 'thank god'. Like I drive crazy or something. Mothers, psychics...they're all the same."

~o0o~

"So, lawyer, hunh? How'd you come to that?" Dean peeled back the bun on his cheeseburger, poking at tomato slices suspiciously. The diner they'd stopped in promised the 'best darn burgers in the world', so Dean insisted they stop. So far, he'd told Sam, he wasn't all that impressed. Too much lettuce, not enough meat, he'd said.

"Because—" well, Sam didn't think it'd be smart to say he wanted to help put people like his brother away, so he said, "I wanted to help people." Dean beamed at him like he'd done something really clever. Sam nibbled an edge of the world's greatest burger. The lettuce was crisp. That was a nice touch. He resisted patting the burger down with a napkin again—Dean had almost stroked out when Sam did that the first time. 

"Yeah, that's good, Sammy. That's what we do, you know, the family business. We help people, we...well, we help people. I'm glad to see it's still in your blood."

"Yeah," Sam said, "well...I'm missing classes, so that's not gonna happen, is it?" He took a bite of his burger—conversation over. 

Dean looked ashamed. "Well, I'm not sure Sam. It...no, it might not. We'll have to see."

Sam was smart enough not to yell this time. He figured he'd skirted the edge enough times. Sooner or later, this guy was gonna get tired of being lectured and yelled at, and figure out that dragging Sam around wasn't worth it, and kill him. Or sell him. Or cut him into bits and eat him—why the fuck _did_ he want Sam? Family reunion with what was left? What did Dean want...and just what the fuck did he think he was protecting him from? That was what really scared him….

~o0o~

They spent another night in another crappy motel, courtesy of Clive Campbell—or his credit card, at least. By that time, Sam had concluded that either Dean suffered some sort of multiple personality disorder, or he worked credit card fraud. Sam was too fucking tired to be appalled when he'd finally figured that out. He just asked Dean to for god's sake get a pair of queens because the doubles were just too fucking small for him. Dean had looked at him and laughed for ages.

"Y'think we're stayin' at the Marriott or somethin'? Fuck, if our beds are clear of crawly little company we're good," he snorted.

Of course, that night Sam didn't sleep a wink.

They drove, and drove some more, and Sam thought his legs were going to permanently cramp. "Why don't you have a car made in this century?" he groused. "This car has...is that a cassette player? Are those cassettes?"

"Yeah. Uncle Bobby installed it himself. Looks good, right? He did a great job. Magic hands with cars," Dean stroked the dash like you'd stroke a dog. "This old girl's taken me all around the country, y'know." 

Sam looked at the worn beige dash, the old-fashioned dials and switches, and just didn't get it. Why didn't Dean have a CD player? Fucking better A/C? Cassettes, Jesus….

He flicked through the box Dean had plopped in his lap. "These are all old guy music tapes," he complained. "Black Sabbath. Motorhead. Metallica. It's the greatest hits of mullet rock. You're like an old guy shoved into a young guy's body, listening to old guy music and driving an old guy car."

"Hey, hey, hey, no dissin' the Chevelle, man." Dean patted the odd, three-spoke steering wheel, huffed a breath on her emblem, a fleur-de-lis, before buffing it in exaggerated motions. "Don't listen to him, Baby. You got my heart; he's just m'pain-in-the-ass little brother."

Sam actually laughed at that; surprisingly, he felt a bit lighter than he had in days, flying down the highway in an old...what did Dean call it? "A Chevelle?"

"Yep. A '68 SS 396. A classic, and she's my baby."

Sam stared out the window, frowning. Something seemed off, like most faint memories he had of the time...before. "This car. It's like, I should know it, it's almost familiar. But it's off." He pressed his palm against the vinyl seat, ran his other hand over the padding on the door. "I think. This is different."

Dean raised his eyebrows, shot Sam a look before concentrating really hard on the road ahead. "Well, I picked her because it reminded me of Dad's—our dad's—car. 1967 Chevy Impala, black as sin, beautiful car. Long gone. Got impounded, and Uncle Bobby couldn't find her. Truth to tell, he was a lot more concerned with saving me from some...juvenile psych ward than looking for a car. Not that he wasn't worried about you, too. It was just, well, he knew where you were and that you were safe, but me...anyway, when I was a little kid he promised me a car to replace her, and when I was old enough to work on one, I chose this."

Sam looked at Dean. He looked so fucking happy, drumming his fingers against the wheel, smiling. The sun lit him up like...like magic. Turned him into Apollo…. 

"I'm sorry we lost the car, Sammy, but Baby here is loyal. She's going to take to you, because you're family."

~o0o~

Sometimes around their third night out, Dean said, kind of halfheartedly, "I guess we're going to have to talk about all this. Soon."

At that point, Sam was at a place where he wasn't waking up in terror anymore. He barely woke in dread; In fact, after all the hours spent together on the road, he'd begun looking at Dean a little differently. And Dean was smiling at him, his expression much happier, with less agonized shame lurking in his eyes. As time went by, Sam was beginning to believe him when Dean assured him that he wasn't going to kill him, and less inclined to automatically dismiss him when Dean said he hadn't killed their father. Maybe...maybe something happened in which Dean honestly didn't believe he was in the wrong for killing their father. And from the little tidbits Dean dropped about the man, Sam was beginning to build a picture of a somewhat abusive, more times then not, absentee father.

Except...sorrow radiated from Dean when he talked about their dad. It was obvious that Dean, regardless of what Sam thought of him, had adored their father. The man had never been more than a symbol of lost family to Sam. He had no memories of him, even though he'd been six when the man died.

Making Dean ten.

Making the kid who'd supposedly fed and practically raised Sam, and had killed the man who was their father, only _ten_ when it happened. Holy shit. Dean couldn't have been in jail for the last sixteen years...could he? They didn't put little kids in jail, no matter what they did, right? He remembered asking Mom and Dad when he was little where Dean was, and they just said he was locked up. Sam never really asked more than that…why hadn't he questioned it? Why not when he'd grown up? How could he have forgotten this man?

"Okay, Dean."

"Hmm," Dean replied, bent over a small leather journal, and as far as Sam could see, pretending he hadn't heard his name. "What is it, Sam?" he murmured.

"So talk already. You said you wanted to, so...what happened? Why did it happen?"

Dean sighed, like he'd been waiting, with no enthusiasm, for this question. He tossed the book down on the bed he'd claimed, and leaned back against its headboard. "Not yet, Sam, not everything. But I can tell you something about our lives. You won't believe me...and you definitely won't like it. Or me. But it's what I can give you now."

~o0o~

Dean rubbed his face, hard. Sam watched his hands move, thought how unlike his they were, shorter fingers, wider palms, red knuckles laces with thin white lines. The back of his hands were dotted with fine scars as well, some only recently healed. Was he a fighter, Sam wondered, or...a gangster? A construction worker...a really mean librarian? He yelled for the goofy part of his mind to shut up, and watched Dean's expression shift, going harder, when he dropped his hands.

"Ghosts are real."

Oh fuck, Sam thought. It's worse than he'd imagined; Dean truly was insane.

"It's okay, I know you don't believe it. But they are, and almost any monster you can imagine is real."

Sam's mouth ran away with him. "Vampires?"

"Nah, they're extinct," Dean said, casually as if Sam had asked him if there was any milk left.

"But werewolves are real, and genies are real, and a whole lot of stuff you don't even know the name of. But our Dad did." Dean held up the book he had been reading. "Later on, we'll take a look together. But yep, Dad knew his shit. Well, our Dad knew what he knew, but Bobby, and Pastor Jim, and Travis, and a few others, knew more—like, the shades of gray between the black and white our Dad wanted the world to be. Easier for him that way…."

Sam took a few deep breaths, trying to head off the anxiety attack that being crammed into a postage size room with a really fit whack-job was percolating.

"Whoa, whoa, Sam," Dean snapped, catching Sam's arms. 'Hey, buddy, don't check out, okay? I promise, it's okay."

Sam actually felt himself comforted by that. Dean had a way of being so... _there_...and he'd dropped his voice down into a mellow, silky tone that felt like it was just for Sam.

"Can I…?" Dean asked, and gently eased Sam closer, giving Sam lots of time to pull away, until his head was tucked under Dean's chin and Sam almost cried, it felt so right. Whack-job or not, it felt good to be surrounded by Dean...which meant that somewhere along the way, Sam had lost all of his own marbles.

"I gotta tell you this stuff, and I know you're gonna think I'm crazy but...don't matter. You think what you want. Maybe as time goes by you'll see I'm tellin' the truth, and I hope to god it's just through research or something, and not from practical experience. Anyway...ghost stories and horror movies get it right sometime. Anytime you've been afraid of something lurking in the dark, worried that there's something out there that wants to hurt you, you've been right. Yes. There are monsters and a lot of them, most of them, do want to kill you. What our Dad did was stop them. We protect people. Our Dad raised me to be a hunter and he was gonna raise you to be that too. Only, he...things changed. Now, I got this book, belonged to our Dad, and I'm gonna take you to see people who'll explain it better than me, but what it boils down to is our family's always done its best to protect the helpless."

Sam shook his head, realized what he was doing only when Dean stopped the movement between his hands. Dean's hands smelled, Sam thought, like...hunh. Like safe; a metallic scent, a machine smell, something else, like some kind of herb….

"Sammy? Hey, Sammy?"

"You keep calling me that," Sam choked out. "I hate it. It makes me sound like a stupid little kid, like I'm helpless."

"Oh, fuck no," Dean said, "last thing you are is helpless. But. I'll stop if that's what you want. I'm sorry it upsets you."

Strength drained out of Sam, Dean's hands on him the only thing holding his head up. "My dad...he called me Sammy. Right before you shot him. Begged me to help him."

"Oh, Sam—oh no, that 's not what—shit. I'll explain, soon. Just...that wasn't Dad. Not really. I swear I'll explain, but we need...we need to talk to my friend, Missouri Moseley. You'll understand the truth when we go to her."

~o0o~

Sam felt trapped, unable to drag himself out of the mental pit he'd fallen into. He felt like he was swimming in molasses, in so deep he could barely hold his head up. He wanted to be afraid, but he was too damn tired to be. All day, every day, everywhere he looked, he saw Dean with his hands outstretched, face permanently locked into a sympathetic grimace. _What can I give you Sammy what can I do for you Sammy how can I help you Sammy_ but Sam was too tired to tell him. _'You can't, please leave me the fuck alone, go away, leave me be.'_

He was exhausted and resentful, scared shitless; even worse, more and more he was beginning to wonder if there was a kernel of truth in this stuff that Dean swore by. But somehow, magically, whenever he was ready to lose his last vestige of sanity, Dean went and did that _thing._ That thing where he gathered Sam up and held him close. Tucked him under his chin. And every single fucking time it brought Sam peace, despite having to curl over and tuck himself in to gain that spot. Sam closed his eyes and imagined being there now, Dean's heat enveloping him, Dean's rock-hard arms somehow feeling like the softest place he could be.

Sam blinked lazily and shifted on his bed. Was this Stockholm syndrome…? Was he imprinting on Dean in some way? Sam figured it was really a shame, because Dean was fucking insane. A great, big, soft, warm, crazy motherfucker.

He eased onto his back and sighed. It was night, and Dean was out—going to get a drink he said, but the wink he'd tossed Sam's way was a tip-off to the kind of evening Dean had planned for himself. That waitress in the diner earlier had practically climbed Dean like a pole. Sam pouted. And then he bit his cheek. What the fuck, the guy was his brother—besides, what was he miffed about? No matter how Dean treated him, or what he said, they essentially were strangers to each other. What did it matter to Sam whether he dipped his dick or not? Besides, the fear that Dean would kill someone without Sam's eyes on him had faded considerably. 

Whatever had happened back when they were kids, Sam was sure Dean wasn't a—a natural born killer. He'd killed their Dad, but he wasn't a killer per se. Something had happened that had led to their dad's death at Dean's hands, but...no way was Dean a cold-blooded murderer.

It was freaking confusing, and Sam was getting a headache thinking about it. He rolled onto his side again, and thought about running, in an idle sort of way. Dean hadn't cuffed him since that first time, and Sam didn't know why he hadn't run after that. The soles of his feet itched as he thought about it. Stockholm syndrome, that had to be it.

He squashed a flash of relief when he heard scratching at the door, and sat up when it slowly swung open.

"Dea—Oh my god, Jess! Jess!" Sam scrambled off the bed, tripping over his feet in his haste to get to the door, sliding through the salt Dean had spread there amid dire warnings not to move it—screwball. 

"Jess, oh my fuckin' god, how did you find me?"

They fell into each others arms, Sam gripping Jess like she was a buoy in storm-wracked seas. He rained kisses on her, desperate kisses she returned with equal fervor. "Oh god, oh god...how?" He pulled back and asked again. "How did you find me? Where were you?"

"Oh baby, I was determined. And now I'm here to save you. That guy you left with, he's a killer, Sam. What are you doing with him?"

"Well, shit, he forced me, Jess, I didn't—oh god I was so scared for you—he didn't touch you did he? He swore he didn't—"

"No, no, he didn't touch me. Though I gotta tell you, Sammy-kins, if he'd offered, I'd have jumped on that dick like it was candy. No wonder you can't keep your eyes off him! The way you drool...gotta say, puppy, I had no idea you actually swung that way! I mean, remember spring break and that party at Benny's? Totes thought that one time we partied with what's-his-name was due to me and loads of tequila! Hell, I _love_ seeing pretty boys go at it like that." 

She smiled down at Sam, her expression a creepy mixture of the kind of fondness a person felt for a pet—and lust. Sam choked back sudden nausea as she cupped his cheek, let her hand slide down to wrap delicately around his neck. She leaned closer, whispering in his ear, "I really should have known—you had it in you all the time, didn't you, you dirty little boy, you."

Sam felt the air roaring in his chest, clogging his throat; the space between his ears an echoing hollow that a hurricane swirled in to fill.

_What. The. Hell. Was. Happening?_

"Je...Jess?"

"Sure, I'm Jess, I'm your pretty blonde, your green-eyed Jess." She pointed at her eyes, smirking. "Just the shade you like, right? Though I gotta say, I wonder why...oh well, no, I guess I don't, seeing as how _Dean_ has the same kind of pretty green eyes. Your _brother._ Tsk."

"Jess, wha—no!" He was stuck in a nightmare, had to be, he must have only thought he was awake. Because his sweet, loving Jess just threw him across the room. Sam crashed into the bed and went flying across the slick, cheap bed cover to slam against the wall. "Oh fuck, what...what's _happening?_ Jess—" he croaked, still feeling the grip of her hands on his neck.

"Keep it down, you idiot," she hissed. "Now I'm going to have to drag your giant ass back to Stanford _and_ kill that pain-in-the ass brother of yours. After all the trouble we went through to separate you two tiny snots. Just kill him, I said, but noooo, they had plans, he might be useful, they said." 

She leaned over Sam, and her expression was...Jess eating pizza. Mildly happy, little smile curving her pink mouth; she licked her lips and said, "I think we should have sex first. I really enjoy your big dick. So fucking hot, the way you turn from a shy nebbish to a fuckin' freak in the sack, damn, you sure can—"

"Jess, please!" Sam shouted, and Jess reared back, snarling.

"Okay, that's it," she snapped and snapped her fingers. A vicious convulsion whipped across Sam's mouth—his lips felt like they'd suddenly become iron. He grunted and screamed and roared behind his teeth, but he couldn't move his lips or open his mouth or lift his tongue. Jess leaned back into his face, mouth twisted with a horribly un-Jess-like grin. She blinked, and Sam shivered at her pure black eyes. She looked like that demon granny in Legion...she looked like she'd like to eat his face and was just holding herself back by a thread. 

_You're not Jess,_ he thought and she whispered, "Bingo," like she'd read his mind. 

"I haven't been Jess in a long fucking time, buddy. Jess has shuffled off this mortal coil. Well, okay, maybe she was pushed, just a teeny bit. If it means anything, dear Sam, she really did love you. At first. Until she realized you were the reason I moved in, and then...she hated you like you wouldn't believe. I got myself off to the depth of her hatred a few times, Sunshine. Man, how she wished you dead—"

Three things happened at once: there was gunshot, there was blood, _everywhere_ and Jess dropped flat onto his face.

"Sam!" Dean fell through the doorway, gun drawn, and his arm shaking. 

Sam lay there under the weight of his dead girlfriend. Or...someone who looked like his girlfriend. Something...he screamed when Jess suddenly lifted her head, grinning at him with a mouth full of bloody teeth. 

_"Surprise!"_

"Sam, don't move," Dean shouted. 

_Don't move? Don't move? Was he insane?_ His...Jess was bleeding on him. Jess was, she was—

She moved faster than any human he'd ever seen. She clocked Dean, knocked him into a wall; Sam heard a sharp crack. Dean's gun went flying, and he dropped to one knee, digging frantically in his jacket before staggering upright and tossing...water? Throwing water into her face, and suddenly steam covered her whole head and she was screaming.

For a horrible, whacked-out few seconds he thought Jess' face was on fire. She jumped backward, crashing into the window. Her elbow smashed through the glass; shards and blood sprayed outwards. Chill air whipped through the room, the drapes catching on the shards still trapped in the frame.

She crouched on the sill just for a minute, and wiggled her fingers in the kind of wave they both used to think was funny, little bougie wave, and blew him a kiss before vanishing into the dark. 

The minute he lost sight of her, the weird paralysis disappeared—his mouth worked again. "Dean? Dean?" Sam repeated his name until Dean staggered into view.

"Sam, you're okay, yeah?" He quickly ran his hands over Sam's torso, his arms, grimacing at the blood but looking relieved that none of it was Sam's. "Yeah, you're okay…" 

Dean's hands were on Sam's face when Sam grabbed at them, pinning them in place. "Dean, what was that? I don't understand. What happened? Jess, she…?"

"Sammy...that wasn't Jess, okay? Whatever she said to you, it was a lie. That's what they do; they lie."

"They? What they? What do you mean?" Sam was aware that he had Dean's hands trapped against his face, but he couldn't let go, the thought of Dean not touching him was worse than...than Jess dying on his chest and coming back to life. "Help me!"

"Oh, Sammy. God, I'm so sorry, I know she was...you loved her. I'm so sorry."

"Dean, is she...is she dead?"

Dean nodded, and the grip of his hands softened under Sam's. His thumb swept back and forth across Sam's temple and his eyes dropped. "I'm sorry, Sam, more than likely, she is. They...she probably didn't suffer; most of the times the possessed are...unaware," he said, but Sam was pretty sure his brother just lied to him. 

"But what _happened? Her eyes were, oh god..."_

"Demons. She had black eyes, right? Yeah, possessed." Dean sighed. "A monster took your girlfriend. I can't tell you how or when. It could have happened...at any time, Sam. No one can tell. Sometimes people notice a loved one is acting strange—withdrawn, or. Or mean. Cruel. Or just differently."

"Differently..." Sam slowly let Dean draw his hands away, instantly missing the heat. "I...oh god, Jess was...she was always sarcastic, but funny, y'know? Though lately, yeah...she's been kind of mean. Just little things at first; picking at me, her friends, jabbing at our sore spots, _private_ things, you know? Getting more and more vicious, I guess. And…" he stopped, mouth dropping, eyes growing wide. "And Brady—Tyson, my best friend. Out of the blue, he's turned into a real asshole. He came back from break and he was—so different. _Mean._ Like, like Jess.…" 

Sam's voice trailed off into silence as he stared at Dean, waiting for him to tell Sam he was fine, Brady was fine, Jess was fine.

"Shit." Dean sighed, and blew Sam's fragile hope out of the water. "Shit...we are so screwed." Dean shook his head, both hands coming up to scrub at his face.

"Why? Why are we screwed?"

"Not now, Sam. Right now, we've got to make tracks. Missouri's waiting, and we don't want to get stuck payin' for the fuckin' window."

~o0o~

Sam never imagined there'd come a day he'd skip out on a motel, but he was living a lot of stuff outside the realm of his imagination these days..

Under Dean's terse order, Sam packed faster than he ever had in his life. He shoved his pitiful handful of clothes and toiletries (and Jess' shirt, and the picture Dean had known to bring) into a skinny backpack Dean had given him, then packed Dean's clothes into a big, beat-up, old duffle bag. Meanwhile, Dean had packed all the pointy and dangerous things into a bag that came from out of the air, apparently. Sam had no memory of Dean dragging a bag full of weapons into the room with him. He was glad that he hadn't noticed. Weapons that weren't a bat, or a steak knife under the pillow, made him really nervous. 

Right before they'd slipped out of the room, Sam noticed that Dean dropped a couple of bills on the table. Dean caught him looking and flushed. He cut his eyes away and mumbled, "Hey, someone's gonna get stuck cleaning this shit up."

Sam was still thinking about that when they were on the road. He was beginning to think maybe something was wrong in the story he'd always been told. Was it possible that a kid could be a...a cold-blooded killer, and then...change? Heal? Maybe Dean's time had been spent in a psych facility; maybe it had helped him change. 

Or maybe, everyone along the way had been wrong about Dean. Sam just didn't know how, or who, to ask. Things had been strained with his folks since he'd...well, it wasn't running away from home when you left for college. Unless you were Pat and Bill Mazur…then you were being the ungrateful kid who refused to take over the family business and had the temerity to gain a full fucking ride to one of the best universities in the nation.

Sam took a deep breath and looked over at Dean, whose whole attention was on the road, a little contented smile bowing his lips...damn it. What the hell was wrong with him? He'd gone from bone-chilling fear to—to this odd fascination. He just couldn't...he couldn't make that connection, it wouldn't click, that this guy was his brother—his _sibling_ and besides that, he wasn't even attracted to guys in that way, damn it. 

Except somehow, to some degree, he was. He kept staring at Dean, trying to figure out why in such a short amount of time, Sam felt so strongly about him. He spent a lot of time watching the sunlight shift over Dean as they moved. He got lost in the light traveling across Dean's cheekbones, the way shadow curved over the swell of his lip. Wasn't there a word for this bizarre attraction? Some kind of effect, a syndrome? Just what the fuck was this sudden gaying-up of his aesthetic sense? 

He dropped his eyes to his lap, watching his fingers try to strangle each other. He'd be fine. He just needed some air. And a little space, like, two or three states between himself and Dean….

"How ya doin' over there, Sammy—I mean Sam? You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm. I'm alright, I guess."

"Good, good. I see there's a chance you'll take to this life of crime."

"Dean!" 

Dean just chuckled, like everything was a-okay, then gave Sam a quick wink and a brief smile that Sam was physically incapable of not returning, at least a little bit. The fucker.

~o0o~

Sam experienced the sensation of falling asleep and starting a new day waking up in a moving car. Another first. Waking up when the sun was just starting to rise on the road was oddly...beautiful. Watching the light go from gray to gold, seeing the countryside wake up—Sam had never experienced it. His eyes were fixed on the brightening horizon and Dean, Dean seemed to get it. The radio was low; Sam could hear the tires humming against the asphalt and snatches of sound coming in through the slightly cracked window. The air rushing through was chilly, but only enough to wake him. At the moment, he was content to be silent, until he turned to Dean, who was watching him with that fond look...and a touch of something else in his eyes.

Sam dropped his eyes. The green of Dean's eyes were so close to Jess' color. His heart squeezed painfully, wishing he knew exactly where she was, what was happening to her, whether Dean was right and she was...was actually gone; he gasped when the touch of Dean's hand broke into his increasingly darker thoughts. 

"Whadaya say, Sammy—darn it, Sam, sorry—you ready to stop?"

Dean's words sent a little twinge through him. Yes, definitely. Sam nodded. "Yeah, that'd be good."

They stopped at the first gas station they saw, Sam unbuckling when Dean did, watching Dean as he gassed up the Chevelle, then following him across the parking lot. They reached the doors and Sam grabbed Dean by the shoulder just as he reached out for the door handle, stopping him. "Hey, uh, it's—it's okay if you call me Sammy, sometimes. I guess...you saved me, I think. So, yeah, it's okay."

Dean gave Sam a look that made the sunrise he'd watched that morning seem pitifully bland. Sam blinked, and dropped his hand like he'd been burned. Dean didn't seem to notice though, he swaggered through the glass doors like he owned the place, whistling some tune Sam didn't recognize. Was catchy, though. 

Dean took him around the gas station and pointed out what was safe and was was not. "Burritos, Sammy, avoid them like the plague, and anything that's got fish in it unless you're in a fish state. Anything sealed in plastic is okay. Anything like a Twinkie or a Hostess cupcake is always okay because that shit'll survive a thermonuclear war." 

Dean bought them sandwiches and sodas, and drove them around to the back of the lot. They ate, leaning against the royal-blue car. Sam listened to Dean describe how he'd painted her, from prep to why he chose blue over black. "Royal blue, Sam, the color of kings."

Sam just chewed and nodded, and didn't add that purple was actually the color of kings, not when Dean seemed so pleased with himself. Sam ran a hand over the Chevelle's roof, trying to imagine sanding and prepping his own car to paint, rebuilding the engine on his own. He couldn't picture building a car basically from the ground up. Dean must feel pretty damn good about himself, Sam thought. He was smart, smart enough to figure out how to fix this car, skilled enough to put it into practice, confident enough to look at a wreck and say 'I can fix that'. Sam envied him, just a bit, but he'd keep that to himself. Dean might be this guy now, but who knew what it took to get to this point? What Dean had overcome? Sam could tell, just looking at Dean, that whatever horror he'd committed as a child, he'd paid for, had been cured. Still, he shivered when Dean started speaking again. The subject Dean chose was not one Sam wanted to dwell on.

"This reminds me of good days with Dad. You were too young to remember this, but we'd come to these really big truck stops sometimes. They were fun: stores, lunch counters, they even had showers and stuff. Dad let us roam on our own as long as we stayed inside...he'd usually let us pick out a little something if it was cheap enough." 

Dean sighed, a little smile on his face, totally unaware that he'd knocked Sam out of his little fantasy world. If everything had been so good, then why had the thing that happened, happened?

"Saddle up, Sammy. We're almost at the end of the run." 

Dean grabbed their garbage and winged it into a trash drum at the edge of the picnic stop—did a little fist pump of victory when he hit it square. He hopped in the car, waited for Sam to slide his way in, and then cranked up the radio. He never showed any notice about how quiet Sam was for the rest of the ride.

~o0o~


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**  
Daybreak found Sam sitting on the Chevelle's hood. It was chilly enough for his sweatshirt; he had the sleeves pulled down over his knuckles and the hood up against the cold morning breeze. He was also working on a cup of surprisingly good gas station coffee. He sipped, and tapped fingers against his knee in tune to one of Dean's old-guy songs —those things were fucking earworms—as he waited for Dean to come back from the head. 

And speaking of Dean, there he was, strolling out from the rest stop bathroom, phone pressed to his cheek and chatting away. He looked good, relaxed...he was smiling as he talked. Sam hid a grin at the way Dean stumbled when he saw him sitting on his 'baby's' hood. Watching Dean struggle not to run over and shove him off the hood was really entertaining.

"Hey! Careful of the paint job, Sammy," he yelled, "those huge feet take up a lot of real estate, an' the bumper's only so big." He folded his phone and slid it into his pocket.

"Who were you talking to?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's dig. 

"Missouri, to let her know we're almost there. She's really looking forward to seeing you. You'll like her, she's great. Once you get past the teasing. And the occasional sneaky smack to the back of the head." Dean frowned, but broke into a smile again as he said, "And she's a freakin' magician in the kitchen, man. She makes a pecan pie that'll drop you to your knees, no kidding."

"Can't wait." 

When they'd left California, Sam hadn't known much about Dean, beyond what he'd been told by his parents—had no idea why Dean had taken him other than some nebulous _'need to protect you'._ He had even less idea why he hadn't fought harder to get away from Dean. _Stockholm syndrome?_ The voice in the back of his head giggled.

No, Sam was coming to believe that Dean really was trying his best to protect him from something he swore was out to get Sam. His brother had even admitted that he still had no firm idea of what it was after him, just that the thing that had hurt Jess—and tried to hurt him through her—was part of it. Whatever _It_ was. 

Only...Sam had a feeling Dean knew a lot more than he was saying. In fact, Sam was certain that Dean, Mr. Multiple IDs, did know what the fuck this was all about, and filed _Dean lies like breathing_ under his mental checklist about his brother, right next to _Dean steals for a living_ and _Dean has a lot of weapons_ and also _Dean is kind of ridiculously hot for a guy._ Then there was _Dean swears monsters are real._ Since Jess, though, Sam was rather more inclined to believe that one might be the most important fact.

~o0o~

By early afternoon, they were entering 'Lawrence city limits' according to a guide sign they blew past. Dean drove like he was a Blues Brother on a mission until finally he slowed. They were in an unremarkable suburb: quiet, tree lined streets, short driveways capped with mail boxes at the end of each drive. The farther they drove into the neighborhood the older the houses looked, with bigger trees and smaller lawns and old-fashioned flowers in the beds.

Dean came to a stop at a house that sat near the end of one street, a quiet old house sitting catty-cornered on a lot backed by thick, dark woods. The woods looked almost wild for a suburban setting...odd that no one had built-on at the back of this strip of houses. 

The pale yellow house whose driveway Dean had parked in looked nice, homey; there where flower pots lining the narrow porch stairs—chrysanthemums, and some herb-y things he couldn't name. One side of the house had an odd little bow-out—it looked something like a turret. Rose bushes were growing along the low, picket fence that enclosed the front yard, and Sam could see a higher fence enclosing the back. 

Sam liked it. Missouri's house seemed a nice, comfortable place; friendly and approachable. Hanging from the gate was a sign advertising her profession. Sam peered out the window at it. The sign was in the shape of a hand, with stars and moons painted on it. Across the palm it read, _'Miss M. Moseley, Seer._

Hunh. He tried his best not to laugh. It was just so...ridiculously out of place, compared to the staid suburban look of the street.

Dean shut the engine off, and jerked a thumb towards the house. "This is it. End of the road. Don't worry 'bout Missouri, she's gonna like you."

Sam got out and followed Dean to the house. He hadn't been worried that Missouri might not like him until Dean said that...now he was a little nervous. Dean jogged up the short sidewalk that led to a vibrant green front door. He leaned on an old-fashioned-looking doorbell, looked back at Sam with a small grin. Sam frowned back, and tried to look into the windows set in the turret. He was disappointed that the drapes were drawn, he'd wanted to get some idea of the person he was about to drop in on.

No more than a few seconds later the door swung open, and a middle-aged Black woman was standing there, hands on her hips and giving him a sharp eye. Sam felt like she'd just scoured his insides with a glance and probably knew more about him now than his own mother did. 

"Sam...Mazur. Dean Winchester, let the boy come in, get on out of his way." 

They walked into the house, past a room set up as a reception area and on into a small living room. She indicated they sit on an old-fashioned, but comfortable, couch. She sat in an armchair opposite them. 

"Well. Finally." She leaned back in the plump armchair, smile going wider as she studied Sam, her eyes darting from him to Dean. "It's good to see you again, Sam."

 _Again?_ Sam thought, but, "It's good to meet you, Mrs...Ms. Moseley." is what he said.

" _Miz Mosely,_ please. Missouri is just fine, thank you. I have to say, you grew up good, boy—tall, and handsome. You Winchesters have good genes. Your daddy was a good-looking man, too." 

Sam studied her right back. She was about a head shorter than Dean, dark-skinned, her eyes a rich, chocolate-brown. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a tight, neat, old-fashioned Afro. She sat patiently while Sam sized her up, then smiled when Sam smiled. He liked her. She seemed...kind.

She laughed softly as she got up from her chair. "Well, I know y'all are hungry and tired, so why don't you wash up, and then we can eat and sort out bedtime after."

Sam watched her walk off, and whispered to Dean, "She seems nice."

Dean huffed. "To you. She always treats me like a brain-damaged gerbil." He pouted, and Sam couldn't help but snort.

"No she doesn't, she loves you, I can see it when she looks at you. She's just not going to let you charm her like you do everyone else."

"So," Dean smirked. "You think I'm charming…" he started, and stopped—flushed violently. He stood abruptly. "I'm going to—going to help. Missouri. In the kitchen."

 _What the hell..._ Sam watched him go, open-mouthed. That was flirting. Dean had been flirting with him. Sam blinked. Oh...ridiculous, of course he wasn't. He was just…being a big brother? Teasing? Sam shook his head. Two problems there. He didn't want Dean to tease him like a big brother...but he shouldn't want anything else. Was this a thing they could talk about? For chrissake, there was nothing to talk about. 

They probably should talk a little….

God, he had no idea how to talk about it. Sam dropped his head. There were just so many crises he could handle at one time.

~o0o~

Dinner was excellent; Dean hadn't been lying—Missouri could _cook._ Sam would have enjoyed it more but for the tension, so much attempted small talk sputtering and dying; idle chit-chat tended to flop with so many questions in the air. Dean and his friend were definitely skirting what it was that had brought Sam there—like the fact that technically, he'd been kidnapped and forced to Lawrence. There also seemed to be some specific something going on with Missouri and Dean that had Sam on edge; some silent communication that Sam was willing to bet centered around him, maybe whatever it was that Dean feared?

After dinner they cleared the table, then Missouri led them back to the reception area. She walked them past a cheesy-looking beaded curtain, into a rounded room Sam recognized was the turret. A large round table draped in navy blue fabric splashed all over with gold stars and moons stood in the center. There were several high backed, padded chairs placed around it, topped off by a small crystal chandelier hanging overhead. 

There were candles, candles everywhere. On stands, on little spindly tables, on the main table, on the mantle of a fake fireplace, sitting on the bookshelves—everywhere. She opened the heavy drapes that covered the windows—the late afternoon light spilling in made the room look even more like a stage set. She uncapped a small brass dish sitting on the table, lit a match and dropped it into a small pile of dried greens the dish contained. Sam wrinkled his nose against the acrid smell—like burning tea. Missouri leaned into the thin stream of smoke, and muttered a few words.

"It's a warding spell," Dean whispered to Sam, and before Sam could reply, said, "Never mind, I'll explain later."

"Okay," Missouri said, waving off the last bit of smoke, "that should do it. Now, this is my office—"

"Or your version of Unc's panic room—"

"Hush, boy!" She snickered and swatted Dean's arm; that, and whatever Dean meant by _'Unc's panic room',_ seemed to break some of the tension that had been hanging over them.

 _"As_ I was sayin', this is my office and my place of business." She cocked an eyebrow at Dean, said dryly, "I suppose it's also a safe room, of a sort. Now, lots of this stuff you see is fake. Half them candles are battery-operated, a lot of those books are just cookbooks with mystic-looking' covers on them." She laughed at Sam's scandalized expression. "Honey, most of the folks who come to see me are expecting a fake. They want the show, and they're happy with me flipping over cards and telling them whatever it is they want to hear. Satisfying people is easy. What's hard is not taking advantage of them."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Well...you are charging them for fake readings and stuff."

"That I am." There was no trace of shame in her expression—she looked like a stern grade-school teacher. "I only use my sight if I think it's absolutely necessary. On the other hand, I'm not askin' them to give me their life savings. I'm not telling them they need to subscribe to monthly readings, or prayer cloths, or 'blessed holy' oil that protects them from bad vibes, or that the money I take from them will come back to them ten-fold—when I take my twenty, they know that twenty's gone out their pockets never to return. I don't fleece people, I try and comfort them."

Sam nodded, transfixed by the sincerity and belief in her eyes, the steel in her voice. Plainly, this was not a woman to trifle with—Dean's friend was definitely a firecracker. "Yes ma'am, no fleecing," he smiled, and hoped she'd take it for the apology he meant it as.

"Don't worry, Sam," she said. "I know you were just...wondering about me."

Dean's hand was suddenly on Sam's shoulder, startling him. He hadn't even noticed that Dean stepping up behind him. He leaned over Sam, pointing towards the doorway, and said, "You have new protections, 'Souri. I could feel them, stepping over the threshold."

Sam could see faint lines in unfamiliar patterns carved into the molding. Some looked a little like the ink Sam could see peeking out from Dean's collar, a few looked like the squiggles carved into some of the beads on his bracelets.

"Yes, 'Teemah came in and gave me a hand with that—I figured it would be helpful, for us and for Sam. I got some new protection charms for the both of you, too. A friend of mine out of New Orleans sent me an interesting batch. She just had a feeling I'd need them." She turned to Sam, handed him a little silver charm. He flipped it in his fingers, rubbing at the star engraved into the tiny circle. For a fleeting second, he thought...no, he'd definitely imagined the weird little shock dancing across his fingertips. Probably just a rough spot on the engraving….he tucked the charm into his pocket with a quiet, "Thank you." 

Missouri then handed one to Dean, who immediately clipped it onto one of the leather bands. She turned back to Sam.

"This is a safe place for us, Sam. Anything said here stays between us; nothin' can listen in, or peek through the wards. I'm glad I prepared for this, because I have to tell you, boy, the second you stepped over my threshold, I sensed something about you. You have a cloud, or...maybe a better word would be dampener...laid over you. Like someone or something is working to repress your memory of your past, so that it made sense to you when you were told your brother tried to kill you. If you agree to it, I'd like to do a cleansing."

It sounded so much like a commercial for _1-800-call-a-psychic_ that Sam snorted. He felt a quick stab of embarrassment; Missouri had been nothing but kind to him and here he was being rude….

Missouri just shook her head. "Never mind, you. I understand...but Sam, I'm so sorry." She hesitated, her voice softening. "I'm sorry about your girlfriend. She was a good person. Have no doubt that she's not sufferin' at all now."  
Sam felt like she'd stabbed him—sorrow curled all around his edges. Missouri confirmed what Dean had tried to tell him. It hurt. It was still too big to completely wrap his mind around...but the faint hope he had faded. His attention went back to her just as she was saying, "But should you cross paths with your school friend—you'd best keep a sharp eye on him."

To Sam's shock and embarrassment, she went on to describe his life for the last year, the ways in which Jess had become increasingly odd, and Brady had become increasingly screwed up. Thankfully, she danced around the one night Brady had tried to come on to him. It had been weird, and unpleasantly aggressive. Frightening. He'd kept referring to that spring break party where Jess had introduced Sam to a friendly boy and an ocean of tequila. After the _Tequila Episode,_ Sam had confessed how mortified—how _confused—_ he'd been, to a concerned, supportive Brady. Brady had done a total 180º after Christmas, though. He'd thrown the incident up in Sam's face, he'd cornered Sam, crowding him up against a wall and...Sam had had to fight harder than he'd expected to to get away from Brady.

Later, Brady had insisted he'd been joking, but Sam distanced himself as much as he could after that. He was so deep in thought, remembering all that, that he jumped when Missouri touched him.

"You were smart to put space between yourself and that boy. That was good instincts, Sam. You have a strong will, and a deep drive to be good. It's saved you more than once."

Dean's head whipped around to Sam, like this was something Sam had been holding back from him.

"I just...I figured it was college, y'know? People change, they get more experience, and...well. They change." Sam shrugged. Even he was a different guy to the one that had left home.

 

Missouri patted Sam's arm. "They do at that. But I guess you know now that it was more than growing up or gaining experience. I'm not sure what Dean and you have talked about, but when your daddy came to me, I could see he'd been attacked by a great evil. What it was I didn't know—at the time. That knowledge came with Jim Murphy, Pastor Jim. He taught us what we know now; him, and Bobby Singer."

Sam glanced at Dean—Dean had mentioned his uncle, this Bobby Singer, a few times. Missouri nodded. "Yes, he's been like a daddy to this one," she nodded at Dean. "The man's a god-send to us all. He's got the manners of an alley cat, but a real good heart."

Dean chuckled softly. "Yeah, it was Pastor Jim who managed to cram some manners down my throat, more than Bobby ever did." he leaned forward and smirked at Sam. "Thanks to the pastor, I know the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork."

"Mmm, I'm sure that comes in handy lots of times," Sam muttered, then blushed when a jaw-cracking yawn ambushed him. "Oh wow, 'xcuse me," he managed, before another one took him. He wasn't just tired, he felt...exhausted. Wrung out like a wet rag. All he wanted was _sleep_ and to get a reprieve from thinking about Jess, and this whole fucking rats' nest of emotion he was struggling to wend his way through. 

He blinked blearily at Missouri as she stood. She'd said something but what he wasn't sure of...

"We're not getting anywhere else tonight, hon. You need your rest," Missouri took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze."Y'all go to bed now, and we'll pick this up again in the morning." She held her hands up when Dean protested. "Look at your brother, Dean; he can barely hold his head up, poor thing. Go on now, you get him settled in. You can share your room, if that's all right. If not, make the couch up for him. The other room is stacked full of odds and ends right now."

Dean led him up the stairs towards the bedrooms. Sam trudged along behind, his thoughts drifting aimlessly. He could barely lift his feet, felt like he was wading through melted marshmallows. He had no idea why he was so damn tired considering all he'd done was snore it up in the Chevelle's passenger seat. _Stress_ his brain supplied.

Opening the door, Dean said, "This is where I sleep when I'm visiting. I used to visit a lot more when I was little, Bobby'd drop me off when he had a run, or a job. She used to let me do the room anyway I liked, just like at Bobby's." Dean smiled at Sam and waved him in. "I took down all the vintage soft-porn posters."  
It was a nice room, big enough to fit in a dresser, a small desk, and an enormous bed—he'd spent all of his post growth-spurt years curled around himself in a double, he fucking envied Dean this football field of a bed. Dean caught his surprise.  
"Yeah, Bobby doesn't believe in a lot of wasted luxury, but he definitely believes a good night's sleep is a must. He got me the king-size here, and at home, too." Dean shook his head. "Strange old coot."  
He grabbed a kit bag from the dresser, and tossed it to him. "Left our bags in the car, but we always stock extra, just in case...so go get clean." 

 

Clutching the kit bag holding the necessary hygienic supplies, Sam headed to the bathroom Dean had pointed out. He pushed open the door, took a step over the threshold, and froze.

The bedroom had been great, but the bathroom was _amazing._ It was huge, all done up in navy and white, with thick rugs on the floor, and big, fluffy looking towels hanging on a double rack on the shower wall. The shower was actually big; roomy enough for him, with a built-in bench at one end and a telescoping shower head. _Nice._ Sam broke into a huge smile and some of his feeling of cloying exhaustion lifted. After days of sketchy motels and their moldy little, doll-sized showers, this looked like heaven.

He plucked a thick terry washcloth off the towel rack and got the shower going. The water was warm enough in seconds, and the pressure...Sam stepped into the shower and leaned into the spray. Pressing the soft cloth into his face, he sighed happily. "Yes, oh my god…"  
There were two different bottles of body-wash, one with grit in it for some weird reason, a minty-scented shampoo, and conditioner in a pink bottle he'd never heard of but promised miracles for his hair. He used all of them. The warmth of the water, the excellent pressure, the smooth sweep of the washcloth, foaming with the lightly scented body-wash as Sam rubbed it over his grateful skin, felt so good, so decadent, that things took a natural progression. Warmth in his chest settled down into his groin. His dick started taking an active interest in Sam's Best Shower Ever.

Sam felt guilty, and kind of creepy, getting a hard-on in Missouri's bathroom. He slipped his hand between his legs, somewhere between covering up and surreptitiously stroking. It felt so good, though. Really good. In fact, it felt kind of perfect. A hot thrill raced through him, and he gave in to it. He closed his eyes, imagining some generic babe doing sexy things; her perky tits, round, dimpled ass, and a waist he could wrap his hands around. He stroked himself with purpose...a little conditioner made the slide even slicker and hotter.

When generic hottie morphed into _Dean,_ dripping wet, light glittering off piercings he may or may not have in real life but in Sam's head he did, Sam's dick jumped eagerly in his grasp, thickening, throbbing. He fought to force his fantasy back to Hottie, but his id insisted and he gave in to it, stroking faster, tighter, giving a little twist at the head, the way it was good for him.

It had been a long time, and he was under a lot of tension, and some of that tension was sheer lust for what Sam had to admit was the hottest guy he'd ever seen. "m'not even bi," he groaned, but there was no forcing the image of Dean out of his perverted mind, he was coming hard, blearily watching his come swirl around the drain. Yeah...the state of his sexuality was the least of his concern here. 

"Oh. My...god." He stumbled out of the shower, feeling guilty and weird—but maybe not as much as he should. He'd worry about that later, he thought, as he wrapped himself in a decadent, plush towel that covered him from hips to ankles.

He finished up in the bathroom and hurried back to the bedroom, clutching his towel closed with one hand and waving at Dean with the other, while trying to avoid eye-contact. "All clear—and wow, that shower is amazing!"

"Oh. Oh, yeah...it's really...yeah. Fucking amazing," Dean said. "Just. Um. Really good. I'm gonna—"

Dean jerked his thumb at the door, and Sam quickly stepped aside, giving Dean what he hoped was an innocent smile as he stepped past. "Um, enjoy your shower," Sam said, then felt his cheeks flame like a middle-school girl, his mind helpfully providing him with a full color, high-def vision of Dean enjoying his shower the way Sam had. If Dean could read minds, Sam would have had to stab himself. Thank goodness Dean hadn't made any kind of eye contact with him. Sam was pretty sure he'd have exploded from embarrassment.

The minute Dean walked out, Sam yanked on a pair of sleep pants and tee he'd found folded on the bed, and laid back to wait for Dean. He skimmed through a book he found on the desk; the inner liner of a cigarette pack doing duty as a bookmark told him Dean was likely the last one to have read it, a Kurt Vonnegut novel.

A few chapters into the book, Dean came back, stepping quietly through the door like he was afraid Sam might be sleeping and didn't want to wake him. Sam fumbled the book, and it hit his chest. "Oh, um...hey…"

Dean nodded at him, all business as he headed towards the closet. He was in sleep pants already, must have carried them into the bathroom with him. Sam felt somewhat cheated, but just a little—Dean was still bare-chested. Sam was helpless not to look at his brother. He was...thinner than Sam had thought. Not skinny, just...slim. He wasn't cut and chiseled like some guys aspire to. He was...sleek, yeah, that was it. Slim and nearly hairless—less hair than Sam had—bet his skin felt smooth as silk. Perfect, except for a few marks here and there...and the tattoos. They weren't anything like Sam had expected.

No flowers or hearts, or skulls and daggers. It was obvious looking at Dean that his tats weren't an act of vanity. Most of them looked like strings of words, maybe in another language, some in an alphabet Sam didn't recognize. Workmanlike, plain typefaces. The words ran across his shoulders, then in a line down his back, like a cross. There were groups of words running down his sides, and some symbols as well, grouped in a circle in the small of his back. The tattoos he'd seen peeking out of the neck of Dean's shirt weren't tribal tatts like Sam had thought. They were vaguely reminiscent of zodiac signs, or maybe symbols for elements.  
When Dean turned to get something from the small dresser next to the bed, he saw that the tattoos continued; there was an open-work star in a circle on his chest, right over his heart, surrounded by squiggles—flames?  
Sam was mildly disappointed to see that Dean in real life wasn't as full of metal as the Dean in his perverted little fantasy had been...besides his ears, Dean only had a little bar sitting at the base of his neck; still, Sam wondered what a bar like that would feel like under his tongue….

Dean turned around and caught Sam staring, huffed as Sam's face went an obvious, mortified, red. "Nope, not pierced anywhere else, man," he said, hooking his thumbs in his waistband. Not that Sam was going to ask, or was even remotely curious. Of course as soon as Dean's hands moved, Sam couldn't stop his eyes from going to his crotch, where his dick was clearly outlined against the thin pants. Dean just smirked.

"This stuff is strictly business for me," he said. "I've met guys with a lot of piercings, who get them for work and for play, but I'm kind of old-fashioned." He crossed his arms over his chest, his thumb playing with a thick silver ring on his finger. Sam did his best not to fixate on his biceps.  
"The piercings are all silver, and good for working into spells, or checking on what you're facing, beastie-wise. The tats are working art as well. This one down my back is an exorcism. Almost as good as saying it out loud. I…" he hesitated, then shrugged. He walked up to Sam's bedside. "I only have one personal bit of art." He eased the waist of his sleep pants down, ignoring, or not hearing, Sam's startled intake of breath. He pulled it down just enough to expose a bit of his hip.

The work was small, delicate—totally at odds with Dean's somewhat macho persona. On the smooth skin was a profile view of a skull, with long, thin wings erupting from the temple and trailing out behind it. Three tiny roses and a ribbon were caught up in the wings. There were three names on the ribbon: Mary, John, and Sam.

"Oh," Sam breathed. "I get it. It's...beautiful."

"You mean cool, right? 'Cause manly men like me don't get beautiful tattoos, we get cool ones." Dean smiled, inviting Sam in on the joke, but Sam shook his head, ran his finger lightly along the curve of the tattoo.

"No. I mean beautiful," Sam said firmly.

"Well, thank you, I guess." Dean blushed, a deep rose that stained his cheekbones and the tip of his nose, and made his freckles stand out a little more.

Sam looked up at Dean, into his eyes, and forced himself to stop touching Dean's hip. "No, thank you, for not forgetting us. Me."

Dean reached out and cupped Sam's cheek briefly, ran his fingers through his hair before scrubbing his knuckles gently against the nape of his neck. "Course not. How could I?"

~o0o~

The main light was off, and the desk lamp cast a warm glow. Sam could just make Dean out in the gloom. Dean asked him which side of the bed he normally slept on as he pulled the covers back.

"Dude, I'll sleep on the floor, it's no biggie. Just give me a blanket and I'll be fine." Sam reached over to grab a pillow, but Dean stopped him.

"Don't be ridiculous, get in the giant-ass bed, Sam. You need sleep too, growin' boy like you, and you're not gonna get it on the floor."

"Shudup," Sam muttered, but got into the _'giant-ass bed'_ like Dean asked, shrugging this way and that, muttering and punching his pillow and yanking the blankets about before settling.

"Jesus, did you finally find your magic spot?"

"Screw you," Sam groused. "Is it a crime to wanna be comfy?"

 _"Comfy?"_ Dean laughed. That made Sam laugh too, a high breathy thing that set Dean off again. "You got enough blanky there, Pooky?"

"Shut the fuck up," Sam snorted out between laughs "God, you're so overcompensating, _I'm-So-Macho."_

They were still laughing as sleep began to pull Sam down. He could hear Dean scooting about, way over on his side of the bed. Eventually, Dean's breathing evened out, then became a soft snoring. Sam lay in the wide bed, enjoying how comfortable it was, running bits of the day through his mind, but eventually, he started to drift off too. Right before sleep took him, Sam startled a bit; aware that somehow, Dean had moved until the length of his back was pressed against Sam's...Dean had migrated in his sleep, it seemed. He was skin-close, and instead of it sending Sam into a little anxiety spiral, Sam just felt...safe. Dean was warm, and so solid, it felt like leaning against a wall, in a really good way. He wanted to take advantage of the touch of Dean's skin against his, but for the first time in quite a while, he fell safe enough to sink into a deep sleep.

~o0o~

"Dean, I wonder if you could do a few things for me while you're here?"

Missouri slid a couple of sunnyside-up eggs onto Dean's plate, right on top of the bacon and hash browns already on it. Dean nodded, slathered a piece of toast with butter, before laying it on top of everything else on his plate. "Sure, you know I don't mind helping you—wait. This won't involve any ladders or roof work, will it?" he asked.

She just smiled at him, and sailed past, slipping another egg out of the pan and onto Sam's plate.

"Maybe Sam can help you," she said, in a tone of voice that told Sam it wasn't a request. He tried not to make a face at the runny egg sitting on his plate, lost the fight when Dean stabbed his with a crisp slice of bacon and a triangular piece of toast. Yellow egg blood ran over the plate and Sam grimaced.

"Eat," Dean commanded.

Sam sighed loudly, and picked up his fork. He broke the yolk, scooped it up with a bit of hash-browned potato and nibbled at it. _Hunh._ It was...it was actually good. And of course, his stomach would pick then to growl.

"Knew you were hungry," Dean said with a self-satisfied smirk.

"Shu' p". He glanced up at the stove, where Missouri was looking at him, arms crossed over her chest. "It really is good, Missouri. I don't usually eat eggs, or bacon...or breakfast much at all. But this is so good."

"It's all fresh. Got a friend who comes in for readings every so often, runs an organic farm, or some such. Brings something fresh every time he does. He's a nice man. Got shit luck in his love-life, though." She turned back to the stove, ignoring an open-mouthed Sam while she made coffee.

Dean shrugged when Sam turned to him. "Never said she was a Sunday school teacher," he whispered, grinned when Sam did.

~o0o~

After breakfast, Sam followed Dean out the back door into the garden, armed with a list of things Missouri needed done, mostly small stuff, Dean said with relief.

"She wants the back wall of the shed organized...why can't she keep order out here? House is like OCD central, shed is like paint cans and stuff come here to die. Or breed."

Sam didn't mind—the day was nice, the shed was big—more of a free-standing garage—with double doors that let in plenty of air and light. Basically, his job was to hold the tools and watch Dean drive hooks and nails into the wall, then help him hang various tools—most of which seemed to belong to Dean in a roundabout way.

"Bought this to hang pictures for her...bought this to work on the pipes in the downstairs bathroom…" He stopped and looked at Sam. "Y'know something, little brother? Visiting Miss Missouri is _expensive."_

 

Sam blushed at being called little brother, blushed because he found he liked the way it sounded coming out of Dean's mouth—there was not the slightest trickle of fear, no hint of anger lurking under Sam's reaction. All he was, was pleased...more than pleased, to be honest. He held out a level for Dean to hang on the wall.

 

After hanging all the tools that had been piled on the workbench, they turned to corralling the random items scattered here and there on the shed floor, the sort of stuff that migrates from home to storage over the years. After a few sweaty minutes, Dean declared it was time to take a quick break, and grabbed a couple of sodas out of a fridge crammed in one corner of the shed. He tossed a can to Sam before sitting on one of the five gallon drums of old house paint left over from some redecorating job.

Sam stretched his legs out, flipping Dean off when he complained about his Sasquatch legs taking up all the space. "Midget," he muttered, and pulled his hoodie off, tied it around his waist before tipping the can up and drinking. He shivered when cold water from the can dripped onto the ragged A-shirt he'd had on under the hoodie. He thought maybe Dean coughed, or said something to him, but when he looked, eyebrow cocked in question, Dean just waved him off. He looked a little flushed, and yeah, the afternoon sun was warming up the shed but good...reminded Sam that he had an ice-cold soda in his hand, waiting for him to finish. He savored it, eyes closed with the pleasure of _sweet_ and _cold,_ when out of nowhere Dean said, "So, you never looked for me, never questioned what they told you?" as if they'd been having a conversation about that very thing.

Sam nearly fumbled the can; the question kind of broadsided him. "It – it wasn't like that. I didn't…" Sam stopped and tried to organize his thoughts. "Look, all I knew from when I was little was that...you...betrayed me."  
Now that he was finally talking about it, the words rolled out like they'd been waiting to do so. "I didn't want to know you, okay? I wanted to forget you, and I did. My parents, they told me every day that you were bad, but I was safe; you were locked up somewhere you'd never get out of. You couldn't kill me because you'd never get loose. It helped me sleep, it was a comfort to me, when I was a stupid little kid."

Dean looked like Sam had gutted him. He got up and walked out of the shed.

"Fuck…" Sam stared at the paint-spattered concrete floor, chewing at his lip. He knew what it sounded like, and he had some small idea of what Dean was feeling...but he'd asked, so Sam told the truth, as he'd known it at that time. Sam had spent his whole life thinking his brother hated him enough to want to kill him...he hardly knew what to do with that devastated look in Dean's eyes. 

"Gimme that can." Dean was sitting on a plastic patio chair when Sam came out of the shed a few minutes later. He wasn't looking Sam's way, but he had his hand out, so Sam gave him the empty soda can he was clutching. Dean didn't thank him. He dug his cigarettes out of his leather he'd slung over the chair back, a pack of some generic brand. He flipped it upside down and knocked it on his knee, taking his time before tapping one out. He fished that boxy metal lighter out as well; lighting the cigarette, he took a long draw and exhaled.

Sam dropped down on the ground close to Dean despite the cloud of noxious fumes. He felt like he owed it to Dean since Sam was pretty sure he'd just metaphorically kicked him in the balls...god, but he hated cigarettes. Thought smoking a dirty, dangerous, and disgusting habit. Smart people didn't smoke, he thought and something pinged him, as though he'd had the same thought many times before….  
He frowned, said, "You know, I think I remember Dad doing exactly what you just did. I remember him...smoking...standing outside our rooms and smoking...drinking, too."

"Yeah, well, there ya go, I picked up a buncha bad habits from him," Dean blew smoke out harshly. He tucked the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, stared at the ground as he thumbed the thick silver ring he wore 'round and 'round. Better than him flicking the damn lighter open and shut, Sam thought.

They sat quietly, Dean smoking, and Sam trying to read him, add up the little things that made up his brother—tattoos, man jewelry, engineer boots and ragged, tight jeans, along with eyes the exact shade of green Sam loved. His whole self screamed _overcompensation,_ or would in any other guy. This, though, was all just...Dean. He was intimidating. He was much more than that.

Sam took a deep breath and said, "I didn't get a chance to finish. Is it okay…?"

Dean grunted, Sam took that for a yes and continued. "When I was eighteen, they told me the whole story, everything they'd thought I was too young to know before. That John... mistreated us, and abused you. We never had enough food, stayed in dangerous dumps barely fit to live in. That he made you responsible for raising me, and all that terrible responsibility on a kid's shoulders made you snap and...you killed him for it, then you tried to kill _me._ You were sent away, that was all they ever told me about that. _'He's gone, Samuel, locked up forever. He can't get to you. Ever. You're safe.'_ That's what they told me. And Dean...well, to say you and I got off to a rocky start is woefully understating it, and you doing what you did pretty much affirmed what Mom and Dad had told me all these years. But...being with you, listening to you, watching you...I'm finding it hard to believe that that was all there was to it. I can't buy you wanted to murder me, no. Not you. You're not a killer. You're...weird, and way off-the-beam, but not a killer."

Dean looked like he was torn between crying and screaming. He crushed the butt into the can, and fished a tin of mints out of his pocket. At Sam's look he explained, "She don't like me smoking, so I walk out here and—" he tossed a mint in his mouth.

Sam watched the pointless exercise. "She...can more or less read minds. You get that, right? Also, she must have a sense of smell..."

Dean just looked at him like he was talking crazy. "Let's head inside. We have some more talking to do, and I don't want to do it out here. Besides, this needs more than a soda and that's all she keeps in the shed fridge."

Sam just sighed sadly. He felt sorry for Dean, and he wished like crazy their lives had been different. What could Missouri say that would make any of that better?

 

He levered himself off the ground; Dean reached out without Sam asking and pulled him the rest of the way. Instead of letting go when Sam was standing, he kept pulling until Sam was chest to chest with him. "Hey." He wrapped both arms around Sam and hugged him. Sam couldn't tuck himself under Dean's chin standing, but he could, and did, rest his head on Dean's shoulder. "Don't think so much, okay?"

~o0o~

_"Don't think so much, okay?"_

Great advice, Sam thought, for someone who wasn't sitting in a _psychic's_ house, with the brother who'd kidnapped him and told him a story about all monsters being real and that his girlfriend, who he'd planned on marrying, was a demon. No...what They'd been telling him, insisting on, was that Jess was...dead and that something had stolen her body. So, see, what they were telling him couldn't be true, because Jess wasn't dead, she was just going through something bad.  
Something so fucking bad, it made her jump through plate glass windows and...and turned her eyes black.

 _God._ Sam dropped his head so they couldn't see his tears, eyes on the golden glass of something Missouri had called dandelion wine.

"Dean says you told him what your adoptive parents had to say about him, Sam. Now, what the Mazurs told you wasn't the whole truth. Oh," she raised a hand. "I don't mean they straight up lied; nothing like that. We think, me and Bobby, and the Pastor—Jim Murphy—they told you all they knew, which wasn't much besides the state took you because you had no one, and that your only other family was taken away because he was a dangerous, damaged boy who'd done 'terrible' things.

I'm sure they tried to keep you close like that to make sure you grew up to be a good man. Because of how they got you. We're more certain about that: a nudge here, papers moved there, a word dropped in a receptive ear, and people who'd wanted a child for a long time suddenly found their way cleared. Demons can work their evil in ways that seem positive from the outside."

Sam frowned at her. Demons...more demons? What did it mean? No. Sam refused to consider the idea., because if demons directed his adoption, that meant his whole life….no.

She wasn't there. She had no idea who his parents were, why they did what they did. "You don't know us," Sam snapped. "This is all a load of fucking...psychic _bullshit."_

Dean set down his glass, a tumbler half full of something decidedly _not_ dandelion wine, and cast a look at Sam. "Dude...language."

Missouri shook her head. "It's all right, honey. We do know, because not too long ago, a friend of ours had reason to...'interview' a demon who taunted him with things it knew about you, why it had to be the Mazurs and not anyone else. With their restrictive, narrow outlook on life...just the thing to keep you on the edge of rebellion all your life. 'Course, it seems we didn't get all its secrets. Your girlfriend." she sighed sadly. "We didn't know anything about her."

"But why not?" Sam asked, looking at Missouri. "Didn't you find me by you reading my mind?"

"Doesn't really work like that, Sam. No, Bobby's the one found you, through ordinary means, and kept track of you. Didn't stalk you, just knew where you lived, who your parents were. Where you went to school. But not personal things like...who your friends were, or girlfriends, or—or what you liked to eat. We knew who your roommates were at Stanford, but no deeper details about you."

"Oh yeah, thanks. I feel so much better now that I know you kept it at Stalking Lite."

 

She hesitated, chewing on her lip. She went on, a bit reluctantly. "Well, unfortunately, we found out that you had...some bad influences we didn't know about, because we wanted you to live as normally as possible. We certainly made a wrong decision concerning that." Missouri sighed, after a quiet moment, picked up the thread of the story again.

"Dean was supposed to disappear into the system, be chewed up and forgotten by anyone who might have known him." She smiled. It was small and sad and it made Sam's heart sink. "Because of Bobby, we managed to throw a wrench into that, thank god." Dean tipped his glass of bourbon at her, and echoed her 'thank god.'

So, Dean had been saved from disappearing into what would have been a soul-crippling life. And Sam got...his parents, and no brother.

His parents. His problematical, intolerant, uber-possessive parents. "My parents are boring, average people. They work in their damn book store all day, stay home all night. They go to church every Sunday, all day! We fought like, like, I was coming out or something when I told them I wasn't going to their church anymore!" He caught Dean's wince and filed it away to think about later. "They blew up when I told them I was going to college. _'You don't need college. You stay right here, get married, you run the book store! '_ Those aren't the kind of people who get involved in—in evil!" Not people who owned a Christian book store, for shit's sake.

Missouri shook her head. "Of course not, Sam...they're the kind of people who think they're doing good. They try so hard that sometimes it doubles back on them."

Sam was shaking now, looking into the past, unsure of what his life had been all about. "They never hit me, but they never made me feel like they trusted me. They treated me like, like without their watchful eye, I'd become some terrible person. And I should be grateful for that? No, I mean, I was...grateful they took me in, raised me. I was grateful. I mean, I love them."

"Yes, of course you do. Of course you do."

"Why did things happen the way they did?" He turned to Dean. "Can you tell me, please? I told you what they told me; you tell me what you know."

Dean dropped his face into his hands. "God," he mumbled. "I don't even know...I wish I could say that I don't remember a damn thing about that night, that it's clouded like your memories...sixteen years. Fuck. I thought about you each and every day."

Sam reached out, knocking over his glass; he grabbed uselessly for support as the room slowly tipped. Felt like he'd lost all sensation in his legs. His vision went wonky, the sensation like his sight being drawn through a long, dark tunnel, narrowing into a black thread. His name floated out of the dark, garbled and low, repeated over and over. Something pawed at him and he struck at it. "Get off me!"

_"Sam!"_

_"Sit him down here, Dean, and go get a blanket."_

He was being lowered, and he grabbed out wildly, thinking at first that he was falling, but relaxing when he felt something soft but solid behind his knees. A moment later, a warm weight settled over his shoulders. _"Sammy, it's okay, everything's okay, breathe…"_

Sam realized the band of warmth was Dean's arm around him when it was gone. The lack of it goaded him to consciousness, his brother's voice drawing him the rest of the way awake. It faded in and out, it took him a minute before he realized Dean was pacing around the room. He didn't sound happy.

"Uncle, no. Excuse me, but you're wrong. He needs to know _now._ I haven't even explained what's going on and you want me to leave him for a hunt? Missouri hasn't yet done the scrying and. No, I know...yeah, I want to finish it, but...no, I'm not kidding, don't you dare give it to anyone else. You know how important this is to me. Maybe...maybe I _should_ leave him here at Missouri's, I don't know..."

Shock rushed through Sam, sharp and unpleasant as biting into tinfoil. _Dean wanted to leave him._ He didn't want Sam. What, did he just get demoted into inconvenient package? Dean thought he could drop him like an old pair of shoes? Screw that. He sat up and glared at Dean, putting every ounce of anger into it.

Dean turned, going pale as he caught Sam's look. "Bobby, let me call you back. Sam's up," he said and flipped his phone shut. "Hi."

"You take me back to Stanford, you asshole. You can't—you're not going to fucking turn my life upside down, then run out. Take me back, so I can at least try and untangle the craptastic mess you made of my life."

His brother was on his knees in front of Sam between one breath and the next, his hands gripping Sam's and his eyes burning with...not anger. Sam jerked away from him, and Dean hissed. "Shit, Sam. I'm not. As soon as I tried to picture leaving you here—" Dean dropped his head, shaking it. "Well, I can't. I'm not leaving you, not after finally having you again. I promise."

Sam sighed. 'Promise' was another word for disappointment in his experience. _'Promise you can go to the movies/the dance/the concert next week, Samuel. Promise I'll stop drinking, Sammy-a-rino. Promise I won't make you do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable again, babe..._ All those empty promises, from Mom and Dad, Brady, Jess….

"I can feel you don't believe me, but you will. Other people may've lied to you, Sammy, but not me. You can trust me."

Missouri came back into the room. She spoke to Dean, though her eyes were on Sam. "I set up what we need in the other room while you were on the phone. You're right. It's time we did what you brought the boy here for."

Dean dropped his head, and Sam struggled to his feet, shifting away from Dean. "What you brought me here for?" Betrayal was like metallic ash in his mouth. "What does that mean?"

"Sammy, come with me first, and then we'll explain."

No! You tell me now or—"

"Sam! Just. Go! Let Missouri do this, okay?" 

Dean looked angry, and stressed, and sad. And on top of all that, he looked _scared._ Sam snapped his mouth shut and dropped the blanket on the floor. "Whatever," he muttered and followed the woman.

The table in the middle of the card-reading room looked different now. Less theatrical. More...business-like. That feeling of it all being fake was completely gone. There were a few tall tapers burning, just for light, Sam thought, and a few short, fat ones that sputtered and smelled like fat dropped on a stove's burner. There was a heavy smell of, of...Thanksgiving was the only way Sam could describe it. Cinnamon, and citrus, and vanilla; other herbs he couldn't identify burned in a dish between a pair of black glass candlesticks, holding unlit red candles.

She gestured to Sam to take a seat. "Sam, we spoke a bit about your memories. And we talked about your girlfriend, and how she was taken. These things that take people, they can do horrible things. They can hide away in a body, slowly corrupting the soul. The afflicted might not even know anything at all, until like a switch is flipped, they become monsters—"

"Like you're trying to tell me Jess is. Was." He sat for a second until her meaning hit him like a two-by-four to the brain. "You're talking about _me_ now." What was truly terrifying was that he wasn't surprised. That it felt...like an explanation for how he'd felt all his life, of never feeling quite...right. 

"No, we're not sayin' anything until we know what's what, okay? Now, give me your hand."  
She took his hand, in her other hand, she held a long, odd-looking dagger. The haft was beautiful, covered with enameled designs, the thin bronze blade was wavy, and etched with unfamiliar symbols—just the kind of thing a person would use for some ritual blood-letting—his. Sam whipped his hand back. "Oh no, I'm not going to let you cut me!"

Dean was suddenly at his side. Pale, his brow furrowed with worry, but he managed a small smile. "Sam. This is all Missouri's show right now, okay? She's not going to hurt you, no one here is going to hurt you. Promise."

That word again...Sam shook his head. His ability to trust these two was being seriously strained, but Dean's eyes were locked on his and as much as Sam hated to, he held out his hand. Because Dean wanted him to. 

Sam winced, preparing for the pain. He was proud of himself for holding steady in front of his brother when Missouri took his hand. He let it lay palm up in hers. Warm, soft, her touch was tender as a mother's. She spoke softly, a monotone drone. Sam peeked at her; her eyes were closed in concentration. He glanced at Dean; Dean's eyes were fixed on Missouri. 

She brought the dagger to Sam's palm, but instead of cutting in, she held the blade flat. She waved it back and forth over his hand a few times before putting it down on what looked like a short length of navy velvet. Letting go of Sam's hand, she dipped a square of white material into a little glass of water that smelled faintly of roses. She wiped the knife off, and wrapped it up before she took Sam's hand again. Why hadn't she cut him? Sam wondered. Not that he was complaining..he didn't like pain. No pain was good.  
"Talk to me, Sam."

"'bout what?" Sam asked.

"Why, anything at all, boy," she replied with a soft smile, "you can tell me the truth."

Sam glanced at Dean, who was watching like this was the most important thing he could possibly be involved in. Sam smiled at him, shaking his head. It's okay, he wanted to say, but what came out was, "Well, I'm...I was scared. I'm not sure what's going on. I feel like everything I know is...dissolving. The people I knew are becoming strangers." Sam shook his head. "I feel like I don't know anything any more. Like I said, I'm scared. And...sad. Like I'm losing things."

He could see Dean flinch and start to reach for him, but withdraw when Missouri pinned him down with a pointed glare. She turned back to Sam. "Go ahead, honey. Tell me more." Her hand was softer, and warmer, than his mom's; he liked it. Sam kept talking. She gave him a little glass of that home-made wine, the one she'd made herself, when his throat went dry. His eyes felt heavy, his head was getting a little woolly...he talked, about his parents and how deep down, he'd always felt like a stranger to them. He talked about Jess, and how she'd already broken his heart before appearing in that hotel room, talked about how distant he felt from other students, who all looked happier than him, more settled in their skin. "Skin," he murmured, "I always felt kind of wrong in my skin. Like I was an imposter. Like my body wasn't really mine…." he trailed off into silence, only speaking again when Missouri nudged him.

"How so, Sam? Do you feel crowded? Do you feel like there are things you must do, whether you want to or not? Are you angry, Sam?"

Missouri kept asking him questions and Sam was pretty sure he answered. Time felt so slow, pouring thick like molasses, slow, steady, drip, drip, drip of time. Sam floated on the slow river of it passing, Missouri's voice a warm, fuzzy blanket covering him, making him safe. He could hear his voice, feel his words sliding drop by drop into the slow river of time. He felt tears on his face; he was sad that there was something wrong with his blood. It was really, really sad and just a little scary, but Missouri told him in long, dark, sensuous words that he wasn't to worry. 

His palm pricked, and there was a heavy scent of sage, and then nothing for a long time. After a bit, he heard Dean, felt his touch. His fingers left prints on him that sunk right into his skin and canceled out the wrongness in his blood. He smelled something sweet, fruity, and heard a rustle…Dean was making his favorite dinner—Fruit Loops and Sugar Pops with marshmallows cut up in the bowl. Dean was so smart, so good. Dean was the best big brother ever, ever, ever….

"Sam. Sam. Sam—"

Sam's head dropped forwards hard, sending a painful twinge between his shoulders. "Oh shi—shoot, did I fall asleep? Oh man, I'm so sorry."

"No, no, it's all good. You're good and it's over, Sam. How about you go on up to bed?"

Sam nodded, not lifting his head. This day had been a forced march through hell. He was tired as fuck and all he wanted was sleep. He dragged himself to the stairs, somewhat disappointed that Dean didn't come with. He set his foot on the first step and stopped. Missouri was talking to Dean, about him.

"We knew there'd be a taint in his blood, John said so, we saw it in his journal. But it's weak, Dean. Sam is strong. He has the strongest drive I've ever seen in anyone to be good. He's got that blood in control. I honestly think that it will never affect him. But...he's also got a temper, and he's got a streak of pride. Not anything beyond normal, but…"

"I know. The Beast can get in through the smallest sliver, into the brightest heart. But Sam's not going to be alone. He's got me, now. And nothing bad will ever happen to him with me there for him."

There was silence. Sam caught the faint sound of glass striking glass, and then Missouri spoke again. "I know that's the truth. Here's to you Winchesters. The world's never seen anything like y'all, I'm sure of that. I know you'll protect him. You do that, Dean, whatever it takes. But in the mean time, you can tell Bobby, and rest assured yourself, that's all Sam there, and he's a damn strong man. We got our boy in time."

Sam was weaving on the bottom stair, wondering what the hell was going on, but exhaustion was making a muddy mess of his thoughts, and he gave it up, headed to their room. He dropped his clothes on the floor, too tired to care about anything like pajamas, and crawled into bed. It took him less than a minute to fall asleep once he closed his eyes. He dreamed that Dean held him, and whispered in his ear how much he cared, how he'd handle him with the greatest care for the rest of his life. Told him he'd be safe forever...the ghost sensation of lips on his neck, warm hands on his shoulders, made him smile. In some part of his sleep-clogged mind he knew it wasn't a dream. He was sure of it...until Dean in his dream began singing some old-fashioned love song that made Sam laugh, his dream dissolving like cotton candy in water….

~o0o~

It was already early afternoon by the time Sam got up. He was alone in bed. At the foot, a set of clothes was laid out, a pair of socks tucked into his Pumas. His backpack was gone. What the hell—had Dean taken his stuff and dumped him? He jumped up, ignoring the fact he was just in boxers and a tee, and ran for the stairs. He skidded to a stop when he heard Dean's voice.

 _Still here._ He hadn't left. Sam flushed—the heat rushing so fast to his face, and his embarrassment over losing it so hard, made him feel momentarily dizzy.

He hurried back to the bedroom, dressed in record time, and rushed downstairs. He caught sight of Missouri over Dean's shoulder. She flashed him a wry grin, shaking her head as she poured a cup of coffee. "Plenty more in the pot, Sam. Help yourself."

 

Dean looked up from the heaping plate in front of him, and waved his fork. "Made pancakes and stuff for everybody. Eat up, we're leaving right after breakfast. I, unh, packed your stuff in with mine. It's in the car.

Sam chewed and nodded. What was there to say, except..."Thank you," he muttered and Dean turned a deep shade of red, obscuring the dozens of freckles marching over his cheekbones, his forehead, his...there was one right in the center of his lip, Sam noticed. He licked the syrup from his own lips, eyes locked on the fascinating dot dividing Dean's mouth. He swallowed and looked up, catching Dean's eyes fixed on him.

"These are so good," Sam said and Dean waved his hand.

"They're just frickin' pancakes," he muttered, glancing at Missouri. She stared at Dean, and turned to Sam, staring at him as well. She started to speak, stopped, leaned towards Sam and opened her mouth again. Stopped.

"I'm going to get some sandwiches made for you," she finally said. Sam was sure that whatever it was that she'd stopped herself from saying, it was something he wouldn't have wanted to hear.

~o0o~

Sam watched Dean wrestle a big, old-fashioned, Coleman cooler out of the Chevelle's trunk and into the back seat. Missouri gave Sam a bag filled with sandwiches and a few cans of soda. When she passed them over, she also passed Sam a few bills. He protested, trying to give them back, but she fixed him with such an unamused look he stopped. He set the bag on the ground, leaned over and wrapped Missouri up in a full-body hug. "Thank you, ma'am, thank you so much."

"Oh, please," she said, but she was smiling as she let Sam go. Dean looked their way, brows drawn together, he relaxed as they both waved at him. Sam laughed when Dean huffed and rolled his eyes.

"It was a real pleasure to meet you," he said. "and thank you for taking care of me. I swear, I haven't eaten this well in ages. I...well, I felt right at home"

"Well, alright, sweetheart, I enjoyed getting to know you. Your folks might have been...strict, to put it kindly, but they still raised a lovely boy."

She reached up and set her hand on his shoulder, squeezed. "Actually, to be totally honest? They didn't really have much to do with it; Sam, you're just a naturally sweet, kind, _good_ person. Don't ever forget that. You take care of that brother of yours, okay? Time goes by, he's gonna need you—you're gonna need each other." She raised her hand from Sam's shoulder to his cheek, and Sam leaned into the touch. Her hand was so soft, so warm...his mom had never felt like this, he thought, and on the heels of that came a stab of guilt. Mom had done her best, with a six year old who was...well, nearly impossible to love, Sam thought. The goofy part of his brain shifted unhappily. _Not true,_ it whispered, _it was never your fault..._

Missouri interrupted his thoughts with a soft caress of his cheek, sliding her fingers up, she tweaked a wayward strand of hair. "Now, there's a couple of those sandwiches in the bag—ham and cheese, roast beef, and some peanut butter ones, too. There's a couple of slices of pound cake, too, but don't get excited, it's not home-made. Make sure Dean doesn't eat it all. You'll like it at Bobby's. Don't ask any questions about anything 'til you get there. And be patient, Sam, most of all be patient. Dean is never going to drop you anywhere. Not now, not ever. Believe me."

Sam closed his eyes and sighed when she tugged him down to kiss his cheek and give him a big, motherly hug. "You should have gotten more of those," she whispered.

He was smiling when she let him go, even though tears stung his eyes. "Thank you, 'Souri. Really."

When they backed down the drive, and straightened out onto the road, she was watching from her porch.

"Keep an eye on him," she called, and Sam and Dean both called out, "I will."


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

"We'll be at Bobby's in a few hours—six at most. We can stop halfway through, get some grub. Missouri's sandwiches are great and all, but I'm seriously ready for hot food. That sound okay? Yeah...oh, and you'll like Uncle Bobby. His place is kinda crazy, but he's okay. He's family, just as much as Missouri, you'll see. Bobby's treated me like his own son all these years. Man, I'll never forget how scared I was back when he got me out of that craphole I was about to fall in...."

"Yeah," Sam muttered. "I can imagine just how scared you were." Too scared to ever come after him, Sam thought, and was shocked at just how hurt he felt about having been left behind. Just a few weeks ago, he'd never even considered a brother would be something he'd want, but now, it was all he could think of. Just yesterday he'd been nothing but grateful for Dean, but now his emotions were swinging all over the place. Since he'd started remembering bits of his past, Sam wondered more and more whether the reason he'd been left behind was not so much for his safety, but as a way of avoiding difficulties. After all, two screwed-up kids might not have been more than an old bachelor wanted to be responsible for—and maybe Dean was glad to get rid of a burden he'd been stuck with since...always, apparently.

The audible edge of bitterness to Sam's comment brought the conversation to a stop, and both he and Dean were quiet for a long while. Sam had resigned himself to driving into Sioux Falls in an uncomfortable silence, so he was startled when Dean spoke again. 

"I, unh, know you don't remember much at all about him, so how about I fill in some background about Bobby?"

Dean drove the conversation firmly away from that subject, and Sam was surprised to find he was able to let it go. Surprised too, to hear that once upon a time he'd apparently had been very fond of Bobby Singer.

Dean told Sam stories about life with Bobby after being separated from Sam; what it had been like growing up in a salvage yard surrounded by rusted out piles of cars, playing with junkyard dogs, hanging out in the woods sun-up to sunset—a basically solitary life that Dean seemed to have been quite happy in. Dean also told stories about earlier times, when he and Sam both had visited with Bobby. Well, Dean said visited, but Sam got the sense it was more like they were dumped on Bobby.

"So, Bobby takes us out to this park; he's carrying a burlap sack, an' I'm wondering what kind of monster-killing stuff was in it, and you were having a lively conversation with Mr. Blub, a really hideous little stuffed—"

"A dog. A stuffed dog, with long ears...you put the ear back on for me…" Sam saw a faint image of a blobby stuffed dog in his mind's eye.

"A couple of times, dude—you loved the stuffings out of that poor dog. Anyway, the sack held a bat and a ball and a mitt. We played baseball at that park, even you, running after the ball as fast as your little legs could carry you." Dean was smiling, a dreamy, soft smile Sam knew meant he was looking at the road ahead, but also looking into the past. "Dad never knew. I was supposed to be doing target practice, but Bobby...he wanted us to be just kids for once, you know? 'Like regular snot-nosed little jerks'."

Sam sat quietly. Something about this memory, this story Dean was telling, felt huge. He _remembered_ that dog. He'd loved it. A little spot of warmth bloomed in his chest at the thought of it. Raggedy, floppy, bald in places with lumpy stitches around both ears. And he of sort of remembered running after a baseball. Had wondered, on occasion, what it was about baseball he liked since Dad had no interest in sports at all, and Mom...he snorted at the idea of his mom playing any kind of sport. 

Maybe... _Dean_ was what he liked about baseball….

Sam remembered sitting on a porch, and Dean sitting next to him, feeding him ice-cream even though he was old enough to hold the spoon himself...oh, of course, it wasn't his ice-cream, it had been Dean's. 

He sneaked a glance at Dean, who caught him.

"What, something wrong?"

Sam's heart did a funny little squeeze-hop as he looked at this man who'd once upon a time cared for him so much, and judging by his actions, had never forgotten how much he'd cared..."No, I'm just...a little hungry. Can we stop somewhere to eat?"

"Of course. There'll be places coming up soon."

Not long after, they pulled up to one of Dean's ubiquitous diners. The sign over the door read Dad's, spelled out in red neon. It looked worn, a little old...just the kind of place, Sam was learning, his brother favored. He swore age just meant experience, and that meant the best food. 

Inside, however, it was all brand-spanking new—relentlessly retro-styled with posters relevant to the '50s on the walls, interspersed with bits and bobs like vinyl records and Bakelite phones, letterman jackets and saddle shoes, and brand-new red vinyl booths in neat rows; shiny decor masquerading as aged heirlooms. 

Dean came to a total stop on the black and white checked floor. Sam could feel the horror coming off him in waves. "What the complete fuckin' hell is this shit?"

"C'mon, man," Sam gave him a little shove. "It's a diner, and I'm really kinda hungry."

"This is not a diner, it's some kind of—of hipster hangout," Dean growled, and Sam almost hurt himself trying not to laugh out loud. 

Dean reluctantly snagged a table for them, and Sam found the way to the bathroom. There was an uncomfortable moment when some guy coming out ran into Sam as he was going in. The guy gave him the once-over with a gaze so loaded with lust, Sam felt like he'd been dipped in slime and rolled in filth. He dropped his head and shoved past, firmly shutting the guy out. 

When Sam made his way back to their table, he caught his brother staring at him, blushed until he realized that no, Dean was not looking at him; Dean was apparently checking out someone over his shoulder. For chrissakes, it was that sleaze-ball from the bathroom. Dean was giving the jerk an oily, little smile. A look that seemed, well shit, it was _flirtatious._ Sam didn't think he liked that at all. 

They ordered lunch, a chicken parm sandwich for Dean, Sam jumping in to order himself a salad. Dean had been teasing Sam on and on about his food choices; rabbit food, barely keep a gnat alive on that, he said, but there was that undertone of concern in his voice, and he ordered Sam a milkshake when the waitress came back to refill Sam's water. "Just drink it, okay? I promise, it's good."

Sam put his fork down. Locking eyes with Dean, Sam tried to explain his somewhat strained relationship with food. Told Dean that in all the time he was at school—almost four years—he'd never really changed the eating habits his parents had instilled in him growing up. Dean frowned, and sure, Sam knew what he was seeing: a too tall, too skinny guy, and was probably imagining Sam had all kinds of issues with food. Not true at all. He was just...picky about what he ate. 

He chased bits of his salad around the plate while telling Dean how Jess used to try and tempt him too, with greasy, bloody burgers, and nearly raw steaks, smothered with onions and mushrooms, swimming in pink juice. She claimed all that protein would build him up, add muscle to his pencil-thin frame, build up his strength. He never could eat that stuff, though. He was just too used to greens and small, measured portions to really like the larger servings she tried to force on him. He'd always felt weird after eating that stuff. It was just too much.

Sometimes though—with Jess gently encouraging the idea—Sam wondered whether food had been another way for his parents to control him. Jess had hinted at it often enough. For someone who'd never met his parents, she'd been really invested in getting him to rebel against them. The thought made him smile a little...she'd made it her mission to make Sam realize he wasn't bound by all their rules anymore. 

Dean hummed inquiringly, mouth full of burger, and Sam shrugged, took a bite of his salad. "So, yeah, it's a work in progress. Kind of...opening myself to new ideas and possibilities. Like this delicious milkshake." He smiled, expecting Dean to smile too, or make some smart-ass little comment that Sam would pretend to be annoyed by—

But instead, Dean ignored him, sliding out of the booth and excusing himself from the table as he moved. 

Instead of pretending to be annoyed, Sam was actually annoyed—That was _rude._ He'd thought they were having a moment. Where the hell was Dean going? 

And _there_ was the answer. Sam stared open-mouthed as Dean tapped Asshole Bathroom Guy's table as he went past. The guy grinned, waiting a couple of not very subtle minutes before getting up and following Dean. 

Sam was flabbergasted. Was Dean...was he hooking up with that guy? Was Dean gay? Was he actually going to—to—with some— _right_ now—

Sam was—he was right _here._

How the hell could Dean throw this hookup in Sam's face? Ignore him like this? And that thought was followed by a great roaring wave of justified anger. He slid out of the booth with every intention of tearing Dean's rude ass a new one. Sam followed Dean and his new friend around the corner of the building, and came out into an alley where Dean—

 _"Oh my fucking god!"_ Sam yelped. 

Dean wasn't fucking with the guy—he was murdering the guy. He was stabbing him, over and over, and the guy was, the guy was—

Sam turned and ran like the Devil was after him. All his imagining about Dean, all his fantasies, exploded in one horrible moment of stark reality. Sam had started believing Dean wasn't anything like the Mazurs had said he was, but they'd been right all the fuck along. 

Dean was a monster. A no-holds-barred killer.

Sam ran right past the Chevelle—there was nothing in it he needed. He tore off towards the highway, leaping over the center divider and heading for the opposite side of the road. There was a weedy field, and past that what looked like woods, and if he could just make it there….

He had a horribly detailed flashback to the last time he'd run, when Dean took him down with so little effort at the motel. Fear lent him a burst of speed. Dean was fucking fast, but Sam had a head start and oh god, Dean was a killer—he'd shared a bed with a _killer._

Sam made it across the field, and dove into the strip of woods that bordered it. He risked a glance behind him. No Dean, thank god. Dean. Who'd turned out to be a beautiful _horror._ Sam's insides shimmied with an intense wave of sorrow. 

He stumbled to a stop against a big, vine-draped tree. Crouching, flinging leaves and dirt aside, he found a hole near the base big enough to crouch in, and scrunched himself inside, twisted up like a pretzel. Once settled in, half-covered by dirt and dead leaves, he gave in. He cried silently, devastated. He'd really wanted Dean to be good, wanted it with all his heart because he'd wanted _Dean—_ beyond brother, beyond friend. And maybe that's why this was happening to him, this...punishment for his sick craving….

 _swish-swish-swish—_ Sam froze. Something was coming through the downed leaves, and coming fast. He listened hard, shivering and sweating as the swishing grew louder, closer—

A squirrel dashed past, twisting on itself to sprint up a tree. Sam dug teeth into his lower lip, squelching an insane impulse to laugh. He watched it run out on a branch and then leap out into space, directly onto another branch that seemed an impossibly wide distance away. 

"Sammy!" 

Sam flinched; he scuttled out of the hole, desperation making him try and run for it again, but of course Dean was faster. He knocked Sam down, knocked the air right out of him then sprawled full length on top of Sam to keep him down. 

Sam had to accept it—Dean was always going to be faster, tougher, deadlier. Sam closed his eyes, sobbed in despair. He was going to die here, in the ass-back of some farmer's field, killed by someone he'd thought loved him. Someday, someone would find his body and oh, god, he'd started to care for Dean, so fucking much. More than care, because he was an idiot, and apparently weak and incapable of resisting a pretty face. Fucked up enough to not give damn that it was his brother….

"Sammy, Sammy, you gotta stop running," Dean whispered against Sam's cheek. "It's not what you think, promise. I told you; monsters, Sam, they're everywhere."

Sam sobbed harder, his breath hitching with fear. He'd gotten that memo, yes. 

"He was a shifter, Sam. Wasn't human. Saw his eyes flash—he'd taken someone already, guy in the parking lot, dead in his car. _Shifter,_ Sammy, not a human. I'm not a killer, not like that…" 

Dean murmured over and over in his ear, until Sam could finally breathe again, and then, he slid gladly into darkness, because it was nicer to be there than to be here, with his beautiful brother, the murderer.

Sam came to being dragged/walked to the car. His arm was looped around Dean's neck, and Dean's arm was wound tightly around his waist, supporting him. Sam peered around, and saw that they'd pushed past the line of trees and through to the other side. They were stopped at a short strip of cultivated field, amber with the dried stubble of some plant—beans, he thought numbly. They waded through the stalks, leaving a trail as they headed towards where the car sat parked in the thick of them. Sam stumbled, whimpering, keening, as they shuffled along. He didn't know what was going to happen; now that he'd had proof Dean was a killer, he couldn't bottle up his fear. No matter what he promised, Dean was going to kill him; he had to now that Sam knew the truth.

Dean put him in the car, hesitated, and then, the cuffs that had disappeared after the first motel were snapped around his wrists. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I know it's just gonna make your panic attacks worse, but it's for the best, really. I know you don't believe me, but when we get to Bobby's, there'll be proof."

Dean locked a thin chain, what looked like a dog lead, to the cuffs, and fastened the end of the chain to something under the dashboard. "I get you don't trust me now, I don't blame you, but I swear on all that is holy, Sam, you never have to be afraid of me."

Sam choked out a laugh, and let his head drop to the window. Dean could lie all he wanted to; Sam knew what hopeless felt like now. "Don't," he said. "Just...don't." He waited for the fear to overwhelm him, but he was just wrung out, and when sleep crept up on him, fatigued as he was, he surrendered gladly.  


~o0o~

Bobby Singer was waiting outside when they got there, _there_ being Singer's Auto Salvage of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was a big place, massively ugly. Grey skies, gray landscape, rusted hulks everywhere, dried out weeds surrounding a massive house slowly fading from blue to gray...Sam couldn't imagine a more oppressive, depressing place. Yet, Dean was grinning from ear to ear, practically radiating 'home-coming.'

Sam tried not to yank on the chain when they came to a stop. He glanced at Dean. He'd been sneaking looks at Dean since waking up, mad at himself that he couldn't resist doing so. It was disgusting that Dean was so beautiful it physically hurt—no other damn way to describe the bastard. Sam dropped his eyes, hated himself for being so fucking weak that he actually wanted to believe Dean when he said the murdered guy wasn't human. That he wanted to forgive the fucking indignity of being chained up like a stray dog, just because his jailer was hot as the sun and Sam wanted to throw himself against that heat. He desperately wanted to believe that Dean wasn't going to kill him, that he hadn't brought Sam here to make him disappear with his uncle's help... _Weak_ he screamed at himself. _You're a weak, disgusting, pathetic excuse for a human being._

"Unc," Dean called out, getting out of the car and leaving Sam chained inside like a stray mutt, the sonofabitch. Dean jogged up to his uncle, leaning in to wrap him up in a hug. It was clear Dean regarded Bobby as a father.

Bobby was not too much shorter than Dean, a grizzled old guy with a squint and a beard, and gray-streaked brown hair peeking out from under a greasy ball cap. It was easy to see where Dean had picked up his fashion sense—the both of them were dressed like lumberjacks. 

Dean stepped back from the hug, jerked a thumb towards Sam and spoke to Bobby, both of them turned slightly so Sam couldn't see their faces. Oh. So he couldn't read their lips...like that was a possibility. He stared anyway, and hoped they were worried that he could. 

Dean came strolling back to the car, frowning. He slid back inside. "I'm gonna take the chain off, and we're going to walk back into the house. Don't go running off again, because there are big, cranky, old Rotties out in the yard, and Biz and Rummy don't like strangers."

 _Rotties…oh, rottweilers._ Sam slid out of the car slowly, whole body shaking, despite him trying to hide it. He had no intentions of sprinting across an acre of tetanus just waiting to happen, let alone trying to dodge probably vicious junkyard dogs, not to mention Dean and his uncle. Besides, running so far had done nothing for him, except to get him hurt, trussed up like a turkey, and make Dean think he was easy prey.

Dean walked around to the back of the car, opening the trunk. He yanked and pulled, heaved something bulky out of the trunk. It dropped to the ground, looking disturbingly like..."A body! Dead guy!" Sam yowled, and threw himself back against the car.

"Sam, Sam, look at me, hey—" He snapped his fingers at Sam until he finally forced his focus on Dean. "It's not a person. I told you already, it is not a person." Dean knelt, pulling the tarp away from the face. 

Liar—it definitely was a damn person; it was the guy from the diner, the one Dean murdered. Except, something was off. The  
face was...had Dean disfigured him? 

One of the ears was only hanging by a narrow strip of skin. The face looked crooked; it was collapsed in the center, and as Sam watched, a seam opened along one cheekbone, the skin bubbling and liquefying as the split widened. The mouth dropped open, making Sam jump, and teeth fell out, making a quiet, little rattle as they hit the tarp. An eye rolled out of the socket. "Fuck!" Sam screamed and danced away from the rapidly dissolving—thing. 

"Yeah," Dean said, and gripped Sam's shoulders, pulling him back against his solid, warm, _real_ chest, his grip tight. "The body falls apart when it dies. Like there's nothing holding the cells together once its life force is gone. I'm surprised it's breaking down this fast, though. They usually last a day or two before they turn into a pile of pus and rotting skin. Normally, I'd just leave it under something and let it rot into nothing, but we didn't have much time to get outta there, and besides, I wanted ya to see what it was I ganked. That, y'know, you understand that I'm not some kinda whacked-out serial killer."

"You were telling the truth. You're not a murderer. Oh, _thank god,_ you're not a killer." Sam kind of collapsed against Dean. 

"I'm still a killer—just not of humans."

"Yeah," Sam breathed, and almost fell, the relief was that goddamn overwhelming. 

Dean freed him of the cuffs before walking back to the Chevelle's trunk. He pulled out a shovel and plastic bottle. Sam watched, wide-eyed, as Dean grabbed the ends of the tarp and dragged the disintegrating corpse off to a patch of dirt in a semi-circle of crushed cars. Sam followed, watching as Dean dug a shallow trench, and then shoved the rotting corpse-thing inside. He drenched it with gasoline, and lit it up. Sam stared, open-mouthed, as his brother roasted the thing, a satisfied look of a job well done on his face. Dean looked over, smiling—"Oh! Sorry, Sam, sorry..."

He wiped his hands quickly, before grabbing Sam's aching wrists, working on rubbing the feeling back into them. Dean's smile shifting from satisfied to sad, eyes full of guilt. Sam took deep even breaths, trying to work his way through the seesaw of emotion being with Dean brought on.

Bobby Singer strolled up, ah-hemed; after a second or two, Sam realized that Dean still held his wrists. Dean seemed to get it at the same time, and slowly let Sam's wrists go. Singer fixed that squint on Sam, looking him over from head to toe, before smiling wryly. "Well, damn, look at you, boy. You grew up good, Sam. You're a sight for sore eyes, that's a fact." He reached out to shake Sam's hand, holding it for a second before muttering, "Screw it," and reeling Sam into a tight hug. "Goddamn, it's good to see ya."

Sam stiffened, before forcing himself to relax, in what to him, was a strangers grip. He could tell though, even without knowing the man this was too emotional a moment for him, and he was going to cut it short in a minute, and sure enough, the man did just that. 

"Been too long, son, too long." Singer's voice was rough with suppressed feelings, and the squint got more pronounced the redder his eyes got. It was...Sam wasn't sure what it was. A nice moment? A reunion? He smiled and nodded, because it looked like Dean and Bobby were both so happy and it just seemed the smart thing to do. 

"Well, c'mon, boys, you're probably hungry after the drive, though I'll bet 'Souri sentcha on with Thanksgiving dinner, right?"

Dean laughed. "She 'bout did, Unc, but we worked our way through it pretty good, right, Sam?"

"Unh, yeah...the sandwiches were good…" his attention wandered as he stared around at the piles of – of everything. Cars and car parts and cranes and machines he didn't recognize were everywhere he looked. He'd wondered, from time to time, whatever happened to old cars, and now he knew, they came to Singer Salvage to disintegrate.

He followed his brother and Singer up the stairs, into a house whose insides were about as dreary as its outsides. Again, Dean glowed, happy as if they'd stepped into a five-star hotel. This was Dean's home, and he was really happy here, Sam could tell. Sam had grown up in a tastefully decorated house, with parents who had a successful business, but at this moment, he was so jealous of Dean and his casual happiness he almost wanted to punch him. 

As Sam watched Dean, it as obvious that he'd had the kind of love that Sam had longed for as a child. That wasn't really fair though, was it? He reminded himself that his parents hadn't been bad people, they'd just been...not what Dean had, obviously. Singer—Bobby—smiled so fucking fondly at Dean whenever Dean wasn't looking, and Dean looked at Bobby like he hung the moon. 

Sam swallowed hard. His parents were fine. They'd cared. They kept him clothed and, and fed. They _had_ cared. There just hadn't been this...warmth, this easy sense of belonging and caring that Sam saw playing out in front of him. 

_That's why you ran as soon as you could?_ the mocking voice in the back of his head asked. 

"Sam," Dean called, thankfully breaking Sam's train of thought. He walked through the wide arch between the living room and the kitchen, thinking that the place could use a good dusting. A spring, summer, fall, _and_ winter cleaning. 

Dean grabbed him, making him bend down enough that he could throw an arm around his neck. He shook Sam until he snorted out a laugh. He let go, and scooped a bunch of plates off the counter. "Grab the rest of that stuff and set up the table, dude. Unc's made pulled pork because he's just that fucking amazing." Sam followed Dean as he set plates and utensils on a table that had gone out of fashion in the seventies. 

"Yer damn right I am," Bobby said, not even glancing their way as he whisked something together that had a spicy, vinegary smell, set the bowl of it on the table. "Dig in, I ain't your waiter," he said. 

Sam helped himself, piling meat high on a bun, sprinkling some of the vinegar mixture over it. Dean was making noises that made Sam blush just a bit. The goofy part of his mind poked Sam, suggesting that he find a way to make Dean make those sounds himself. "Oh my god," Sam muttered, "Shut up," he told himself.

"Everything okay?" Dean asked, his tongue snaking out to lick up a bit of sauce trapped in the corner of his mouth. 

"Oh, yeah, everything is great. Hey, thanks so much for this, Mr. Singer—"

"Bobby," both his dining companions said, and Sam nodded. 

"Yes sir, Bobby...your food's amazing. I've never had pulled pork this good." Or ever really, but that was besides the point. It really was so damn good, he mostly didn't care it was a meal for strict carnivores. He'd never been a huge consumer of meat, but this stuff just melted in his mouth. 

Bobby's eyes narrowed, but Sam was pretty sure it was from pleasure. There was the hint of a smile lurking in that beard. "Thanks, son," he said. "It's one of yer brother's favorite dishes, so I like to make it when he comes home."

They ate well, washing the pork down with a bitter but tasty local beer. Sam listened as Bobby and Dean chatted about people they knew and jobs they'd done recently, Bobby complained about a couple of idjit hunters coming in to bother him in the next couple of days.

Dean said to Bobby, with a nod of his head towards Sam, "So, remember that hunt we talked about on the phone? I'm gonna take Sam with me, and he's going to need a little basic instruction, Unc. Whatever training'll take before we head out again." 

"What? The shtriga hunt?" Bobby asked, eyebrows climbing up under the bill of his cap. "Yer bent on takin' that one on, are ya? I thought you and Sam might take some time, y'know, get to know each other again."

Dean shook his head, and Bobby growled. "Stubborn-ass Winchesters...basic instruction, my ass. Well. If you're planning on that, then Sam must know the story of it."

"Well...not all of it."

"Well, what the hell are ya waiting for, then? Better tell the boy the whole story, damn it, before you drag him after ya like a lost puppy."

"Yeah, okay…" Dean ran a hand down his face, and heaved a sigh that was full of weariness. Sam bit his lip, waiting. He had a feeling that what was coming was going to be hard on the both of them.

"Care to step outside with me?" Dean asked, a wry half-grin curling his lip. He pushed away from the table, pulling his jacket off the back of his chair. Sam shook his head no when Dean tipped his chin towards Sam's jacket—the evening was still warm enough for Sam.

~o0o~

Sam followed him outside, skirting crates of parts stacked haphazardly around the porch and on each step. The dogs sleeping there jerked upright, but settled when they saw Dean. Sam's instinct was to call them over for a bit of petting, but he doubted Dean would appreciate it.

Dean led him out to what looked like a giant carport. The safety lights in and around it were just starting to come on, the beams reflecting off its metal roof. Sam followed Dean around some workbenches that were piled high with cans and more parts and bins leaking more mysterious bits and pieces. He led Sam towards the rear of the awning; stepping around hulking machines, they made their way towards a table that was tucked between a couple of battered file cabinets and an ancient, pea-green fridge. 

Dean pulled out a metal folding chair for Sam, then settled himself against a workbench, crossing his feet at the ankles. He sighed, and reaching in his jacket, fished out his old lighter. He flicked it, open and shut, open and shut, before finally speaking. 

"Sam...do you remember anything else about that night now ‘Souri's woken your memory up? I mean, something else besides what your...your parents told you." 

Sam watched Dean's knuckles turn white with how strongly he gripped the old lighter. "We talked about this already," Sam sighed. "It's not going to change what I saw, Dean. I was asleep. You came into my room. You had a gun. You were yelling at me, shot at me. Dad burst into the room and yelled at you, then you turned the gun on him and shot him. He died." 

Sam's voice shook, and tears filled his eyes—he was shocked at the intensity of his emotions for an incident that had long ago gone faint, that felt like it'd happened to someone else. Whatever Missouri had done to him—waking his memories, according to Dean—his remembrance now was stronger, clearer. Speaking of memory, something did come into his mind, clearing as it came….

"Wait. You, ah...I think I remember you saying something, and then the door bursting open, and...I remember lights, and police, and you screaming. They took you away, and then, took me too." And that was that, Sam thought. That was the sum total of it...but that little voice in the back of his mind prodded him. _But didn't you see more? Wasn't there something else? Something wrong with Dad's eye? Eyes..._

Dean's voice broke into Sam's train of though and the voice faded. "Think harder, Sam. Was there something else you might have seen, or heard?"

Sam squinted at Dean, annoyed that he wouldn't let it go. Think, think...nothing, there was nothing else...except...twigs? "Twigs? Long, black twigs, um, scratching the window? But it wasn't windy."

"Yeah. Good. Stuff's coming back, hunh? Yeah, those twigs you saw were fingers, the fingers of a thing called a shtriga. Just listen to me, 'kay?"

Sam swallowed the question he'd been about to ask. Shtriga? Okay. No problem, he would listen. Why not, when today he'd seen Dean kill a...a shifter. 

_Shifter, shtriga, demon. Monsters are real. They're out there. Okay._

"I did come into your room," Dean sighed. "Yeah. I was armed, true. And I was about to shoot the _shtriga_ when outta nowhere, Dad burst in the room. He knocked me aside, and I went flying—then tried to shoot the shtriga himself. But he made a shit shot and missed it. He didn't trust a little kid to take the shot because he wasn't Dad. And then he missed, because he wasn't Dad. He had yellow eyes. That's how I knew—"

"—it wasn't Dad, the same way it wasn't Jess." Sam froze, his heart slamming into his ribs. "Fucked up eyes, like Jess," he muttered but he was focused on a scene that had taken place sixteen years ago, and was now playing in front of his eyes, as clear as if it was yesterday. 

_Sam!" he heard, and he rolled over in bed._

_The window was cracked open and he was mad Dean left it so. It was cold, he was so cold he ached—his skin was full of pins and needles. Something was moving, something thin, and black, against the window—_

_He flailed out of the sheets all wrapped around him until he was sitting up, mad at Dean for just standing there watching—until he saw the shotgun in Dean's hand, pointed straight at him. He blinked. Just like that, he knew—something bad was behind him, he thought, and he had to get out of the way so Dean could shoot it. Sam dived flat on the bed, clearing the way for Dean's shot._

_But the door crashed open and Dad was there, and Dean...Dean flew away, like something threw him and Dad was shooting, but it was—WRONG. Dad's eyes were yellow, bright, like fire and Sam realized he'd seen that yellow cast to them before in his dreams—_

_Dean was screaming, 'you're not him, you sonofabitch,' and Dad laughed. It sounded...scary. Mean. Wrong._

_'You little bastard, he almost died, because you couldn't do the one stupid job you had. Almost screwed everything up, you useless shit bag!'_

_Sam saw Dean flinch, then stiffen. Dean pulled the trigger._

_Dad dropped, there was blood all over his middle, and clouds of black smoke flew out of his mouth and when it was gone, Dad reached a hand out for Dean._

_'You did it, son...did the job, just like...taught you,' he coughed...'Good man. Look after Sam. My boys...love you…"_

_Dean was crying and crying like he just couldn't stop and Dad got all...he looked dead. Like rotten meat all gross deader-than-dead dead._

_Then the sirens, the lights, and Dean screaming reaching out for Sam, Sam crying so hard, trying to get to where it was safe, get to Dean._

_Then the nice lady who made him feel like throwing up was there and he fell asleep, and after all he could remember was…_

_Dean tried to kill him. Dean killed his Dad…._

 

Now he was in Bobby's place with Dean, his brother. Safe. Together, at last. He stretched out his arms, clawing at Dean's jacket, fighting to get him closer. _"Dean!"_

Dean swept him up, wrapped him up in the tightest hug, and Sam felt like finally, finally, he was home. 

That didn't mean that things suddenly went smoothly and every day was ice-cream sundae. After the revelations, Sam found himself trapped in an emotional whirlwind. He was ants-under-his-skin restless, but exhausted. Too anxious to sleep, but too tired to force himself into doing something productive. With no motivation to move, he spent a lot of days in bed, and when he did manage to sleep, he relived the true events of the shooting over and over in his dreams. 

Waking life got worse as his memories got clearer—sudden flashes of the life he'd forgotten would rise up to blindside him, sometimes so intense that he'd stumbled off the porch once; he'd landed face-down in the dust because he'd been caught up in a memory of eating some fruity, too-sweet cereal. And then he'd craved it so hard, Bobby had ordered Dean into town to buy him boxes of it. Ridiculous. Another time, he'd zoned out completely, standing in the kitchen like a mannequin, until Bobby led him out and propped him up on the couch. 

Dean and Bobby acted like Sam drowning in a typhoon of broken-curse recovered memories was perfectly normal and dealt with it like Sam was going through a really crappy flu or something; their patience just made Sam feel worse about it all.

He felt worse again when Dean took to shadowing him everywhere like a sheepdog. Even Bobby's dogs seemed to sense there was something off, and followed him as well. He was exhausted, crowded, lost in memories washing over him when he least expected them. 

He ended up in Bobby's library one evening, having been chased out of bed by another storm of memories. 

"Well, hey. Can't sleep? It happens...go 'head, pull up a chair." Bobby closed the book he was reading, set it atop the others piled on his desk. "Or maybe ya got somethin' on your mind, son?"

"Bobby...do you know what happened to me? My memories?"

"I'm bettin' the real question is why you." Bobby stopped and sighed. "But as for what happened, I'm certain it was a witch, and that she threw a spell on ya. Missouri broke it when she did tha counter-spell. Otherwise, it probably woulda faded with time."

"Time! It's been sixteen years. When was I going to get them back, on my deathbed?" Sam snapped.

Bobby didn't take offense to Sam snapping at him; he just shrugged and said, "Maybe. Maybe sooner. But ya came on the deepest memory kinda quick, so I'm thinking the spell must have been thinnin' already. Witches can be deadly powerful things. Some are quiet, low-level beings, kinda helpful when they wanta be—heck, most tend ta be neutral on the whole supernatural power-trip thing. But yeah, some want more then they should have. Will do anyone for it, make a bargain with anything for it. I think this one made a pact with demons—or specific demon, should say. This 'nice lady' you recalled, she was more'n likely the spell-caster."

"What happens to me now?" Sam asked, and Bobby shrugged again, but this time, Sam could see a little smile hiding in his beard. 

"Now, you let those memories come back to you. And you let Dean treat you like his baby brother. It'll be good for the both of ya. Can't say I've ever seen the boy look quite so happy."

"Happy? He looks like he's one step from having kittens! He follows me around, looking like any second I'm about to explode—I'm just waiting for him to start tasting my food for me—"

Bobby laughed. "Yep. That boy's happier than a pig in shit. We got you back, he's got his job back, and now he can finally put his bệte noire to rest."

"Bệte noire? French?" Hearing a scruffy-bearded, old rough-neck casually spout French was weird, about as weird as talking about witchcraft like it was no big thing.

"Certainement. Speak it, among a few other languages. I ain't just a pretty face."

Sam laughed. No, he wasn't. Bobby was a lot more than that.

~o0o~

"Okay, little brother. Today we start training for your first hunt; gotta say, it's definitely not the type of thing I would have picked for a first time. We usually start newbs out on salt'n'burns, brand new poltergeists...the simple stuff. But this is what it is, and I need to know you can protect yourself at least somewhat."

Sam stared at Dean, wondering if that was supposed to be in any way comforting. Dean grinned brightly back, like he was reading Sam's mind, and punched him on the shoulder. "You got this, trust me."

He followed Dean out to the back end of the junkyard, where he'd set up a few targets. "I'm going to teach you how to handle a gun, okay? You're smart, you've got good reflexes; I'm sure you'll have it down no problem before we head out." Sam looked down at the gun in his hand...a Glock something. All Sam knew about guns came from TV and mystery novels...what the fuck, the weirdness that was his life just kept ramping up. 

Dean went on, telling Sam he'd also have to know a few very basic knife moves, and he'd need to at least know how to swing a machete or an ax. Sam figured Dean was just talking to hear himself talk because what the hell did you need to know about swinging an axe, just wind up and let loose, right? Wait...axes? "Do we need axes on this job? Are we going after rabid Ents or something?"

"You probably think I don't know what you're talking about, but I do. Now, shut up, Nerd Boy, and concentrate on me—"

As far as the first day of training went, Sam certainly didn't mind having Dean's undivided attention, even if he was a dick and kept yelling at him for stupid stuff like forgetting to put the safety on the gun. Which was empty, so what was the big deal? Not like he'd forget to do it if the damn thing was loaded ferchrisakes he wasn't an idiot. Then there was the time Dean almost stroked out when Sam had scratched the side of his nose with his fancy ass, ivory-handled Colt. The freakin' gun had been empty that time too, for fuck's sake. Besides, it was dusty out in the yard, and with the constant dry breeze, the moisture got sucked out of his skin pretty quickly...Dean was just a drama queen. 

On day three of Dean hounding him—Sam rolled his eyes— _training_ him—his brother finally called a break.

Bobby came out to the yard, told them to wrap up practice because company was coming in. Company turned out to be a trio of hunters, looking like they'd been rode hard and put away wet. And filthy. 

They thundered up the porch steps into Bobby's kitchen, drinking his beer and joking about the taste of it, jabbing at each other, pelting each other and Dean with some really juvenile and unfunny jokes. Sam couldn't fathom what the heck Dean saw in their company; laughing his stupid head off with a bunch of guys who looked like they'd escaped from the set of a Kevin Smith movie.

They said they'd just come off a long hunt involving something called a _kerit._ According to one of them(who looked rather like a bear himself) it was a bear-like thing that ate brains and stalked its prey for the fun of it, like a serial killer—another monster for Sam to add to his list. Sam noticed how stiff Bobby's face went when he heard what type of monster they'd hunted. He hustled the hunters into his study. Before the door closed on them, Sam heard Dean say, "But they don't hunt this part of the world—". 

Sam also noticed that neither Dean nor Bobby had introduced him, and none of the hunters had done more but give him an assessing look before turning away. 

He parked himself in front of the TV and resolutely did not feel rejected. He watched a very informative program about insect mimicry. Half-way through the show, Dean, Bobby, and the other hunters came back out of the study. They huddled together in the foyer, muttering in low tones. Sam craned his neck, trying to hear what was said, but only caught something about ash and storms, which from Dean's reaction, seemed to be a big deal. One of the hunters, a tall, brown-skinned guy with a ton of short braids, squeezed Dean's shoulder as he leaned in to talk to him. Sam watched through narrowed eyes. That touch went on way too long, in his opinion.

Dean walked out with the hunters when they headed back towards their trucks, tossing a "Seeya in a minute," to Sam on his way out. Sam glared after them, watching the way Braids was practically walking on Dean's heels. 

Sam smacked himself when they were out of eyesight. "None of your business what he does; don't be an asshole," he mumbled. Clicking off the TV, he figured he'd do Bobby a favor, pick up some. Keep busy.

He swept the floor clean of of the clots of mud and grit the hunters had tracked in, cleared up the beer bottles left behind. He dumped the bottles in the mudroom bin, and sat himself coincidentally close to the kitchen window and waited, his eyes on Bobby when he came back in the house...alone. He waved at Sam as he swept past, straight back to his study. 

Sam frowned as he made a big pot of coffee, and drank it. All twelve cups of it. Alone.

He was still at the kitchen table, a half mug of cold coffee in front of him, when Dean finally strolled in, more than an hour after he walked out. He leaned against the back of Sam's chair, looping an arm around his neck, and ignoring Sam's lean away from him...he smelled like cigarettes, and outdoors...and nothing else. 

"They ran into demons on the road, too." Dean said, leaning over further to grab Sam's cup from him, grimacing when he got a mouthful of the cold brew. "Man...the weird is getting weirder. When we were kids, you'd get a demon-possession twice, maybe three times a year, and that was high back then. Now..." Dean shook his head. "C'mon, we got enough light to get a little more practice in." 

He had a spring to his step, turned back to Sam with a smile; the pink tip of his tongue peeking between his teeth, and god, Sam wanted to trip him; maybe fuck him, show him.... 

He shook his head and sighed. _His business is none of yours, he doesn't belong to you..._ except in the way that siblings belonged to each other. Sam shrugged, went out into the yard where his brother was waiting for him with a big, bright smile and a set of gleaming knives.

~o0o~

After Sam had actually managed to hit the target, in fact, had killed it several times, Dean called a stop to re-hydrate. He had Sam bring them beers from the creaky old fridge near the file cabinets; pushed himself back on the fairly intact hood of a weird looking old car, a Rambler, that had probably last seen the road when their Dad was a little kid. Dean cracked open his beer and settled back with a sigh. Sam watched his arms bunch and relax under the sweat-damp t-shirt Dean wore, felt his cells strain towards Dean, wanting desperately to trace the black loops of Latin peeking out from under his sleeve...Sam shook himself and pushed his mind resolutely towards things other than how hot Dean was.

"So, this is what you guys, you hunters, do?" Sam asked. "Train, drink, and kill things?"

"Well, I don't like to brag; I mean, not everyone's job is as glamorous, but basically, yeah." 

"And credit card fraud? Running out on your bills? Sticking other people with having to pay for your shit, that's part of it too?"

"Yeah, Sammy, it is," Dean said. He set the can down carefully between his knees, and gave Sam that look he was coming to recognize—he'd pissed Dean off. "And breaking my leg last summer on a werewolf job, and being skewered by a ghost, shot by a shifter, bitten by a ghoul and man, you have to clean those fuckin' bites out right quick because ghouls are filthy...I've been dragged under water by a nyxie, fought off a pack of fucking disgusting gremlins—not in the least fuckin' cute like movies want you to think—almost became an incubator for mothman eggs…" 

Sam gaped at his brother, who he could have lost in a dozen different ways and never known—Jesus, the fucking casual way Dean recounted all these near disasters—his breath caught, his throat went desert-dry.

"….and that's not counting all the times I've had brushes with the law so close it'd make you sweat blood. Yeah, I fucking thieve, but I pay for it, and all that just to protect a buncha civilians who'd shoot me in the face at a moment's notice. You know how much reward we get for it? Zip." He snatched up the can, finished it off and chucked it at a rusted-out truck. 

"Sometimes, yeah, you're lucky, you get something for it," he muttered. "Sometimes, people are grateful even though their lives've been ripped out from under. Those people help, or offer some comfort...I'm grateful as hell for those who do." He blushed a dark red, and wiped at the corners of his mouth...Sam felt a sharp stab of jealousy, for the people who got to comfort his brother in whatever way they did, and a deep contempt for anyone who didn't take that comfort, or were stupid enough not to offer it. They were idiots. His brother was more than likely the only genuine hero they'd meet in this lifetime. Well, now that job was his, he was going to be the comfort Dean sought, not clueless hunters—civilians, he meant.

"Thank you so much for not forgetting me," he murmured, and petted Dean's knee. 

"You already thanked me for that, Sammy. I'm not sure if I deserve it." 

"You do. I know you do; you kept me safe then, you'll keep me safe now."

"I will, Sam. I'll do anything I can to protect you, give anything. I aim to pay you back for the love and safety I took away from you."

"Hey, you did what you had to to save me—no, to save _us."_ He snagged more beers out of the mini-fridge "Here." They clacked can against can, and Sam said, "To family. To love."

"Um...yeah," Dean said, "to...to that." He looked wide-eyed at Sam over the edge of the can, and Sam wondered why he'd chosen that particular word. He kinda wished he'd left it at family, what with Dean's reaction to it. Then he saw how Dean's eyes were lit up like sparklers, and how he smiled, cheeks gone a little pink with pleasure. Sam laid his hand on Dean's knee again, and he looked up at Sam and slowly, hesitantly, covered Sam's hand with his. For a long moment they just sat there, watching the play of fading light on the wrecks. Sam thought it was kind of...stupidly romantic, in a way. A Dean sort of way….

After a while, Sam stretched out on the Rambler's hood with Dean, scooting around until his head ended pressed against Dean's shoulder. He waited a second, waiting to see if Dean was going to shove him off, but he just chuckled, a sound that eased his way inside Sam, soft, comforting, as familiar as an old nursery 

Sam closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of his brother...leather, smoke, the sweat trapped in the creases of his skin. Sam turned his head, his eyes locked on the pulse beating under the soft skin of Dean's throat. He tried to keep them open, but his lids felt so heavy. There was heat settling between his legs, a kind of thick, lazy arousal; nothing urgent about it, it just...felt good. It was a good, peaceful, kind of moment, something he'd never had before with anyone, not even Jess in those first, early days that they were together.

It was deeply satisfying; he wanted it to spin out forever, the feeling of Dean's heat meshing with his. He dreamed of Dean's skin against his skin, and in his dream, Dean moved towards him, his hand gliding from Sam's knee to his thigh, moving slightly higher. Sam's breath hitched quietly in his chest. It felt so real—Dean's hand inched a little higher and Sam exhaled softly. Ah, not a dream. He lay still, faking sleep, desperate for Dean not to realize he was awake. Sam thought he'd cry if Dean stopped doing...what he was doing. 

Knuckles skimmed over his dick, tracing the curve as it thickened, lengthened, trapped against the inside seam of his worn jeans. Sam bit the inside of his cheek. It felt good, heading for better, but suddenly everything changed. He blinked up at the sky, now glistening with stars, the safety lights blinking on. His eyelids felt a little tacky, like he'd fallen asleep with his face pressed into his pillow.

"Hey, Sammy, you awake?" Dean whispered, tapping Sam's knee. 

_Shit._ He wanted to cry. He'd been asleep the whole time, dreaming about his brother? But Dean's cheeks were flushed, and he avoided Sam's eyes. He gave him a sideways smile, glanced at Sam's crotch at the same moment Sam glanced over at his. He was sure Dean was in the same condition he was. Sam rubbed at his eyes, and blew out a little breath, trying to steady himself. It had definitely not been a dream, but had still been dreamlike. 

"Gonna grab a smoke before I head inside." Dean gave a quick squeeze to Sam's knee before sliding off the car, heading into the darken stacks of wrecks.

Sam was disappointed. Dean was so quick to walk away. He wanted to ask, he wondered if it was possible, that Dean might be leaning towards him, the way he was leaning towards Dean.

Dean didn't look back, he just swaggered off, bow-legs lending that sexy roll to his stride. Sam nodded. It was okay. It wasn't really the time, not with so much on both their minds. Plus, he needed time to figure out just how to ask if...well, fuck, if his brother was willing, or able, to overlook thousands of years of incest taboo. 

How did he even broach the topic, let alone present arguments as to why it made sense for the two of them...Sam covered his mouth, trying to silence a horrified bleat of laughter. Sense...sure. Still. When this—this case, the shtriga—was sorted out, he was going to come back to this; at least figure out what _this_ was. If it was anything at all or just Sam having twisted his own feelings into something wrong.

"I'm heading outta town for a coupla days, maybe a week.  Bringing some books out to a friend, Annie Hawkins. You remember Annie, Dean? She's looking into a kobold nest in Minnesota. Don't know why she couldn't call someone closer, woman's a right pain sometime, acting like I ain't got nothing better ta do but errand-boy all over creation…"  
   
Bobby mumbled all the way out to his car, a sadder, rustier version of Dean's. Dean was grinning, waving after him, and laughed out loud when Bobby flipped him off. "I'm pretty sure Unc just went off on a hunter's version of a booty call," Dean crowed.  
   
"Oh god, I did not need to know that," Sam laughed.  
   
"Right?" Dean swung around and clapped his hands together, trained a big, bright grin on Sam. "Okay, we got time to kill before Bobby's back and we might as well put it to good use. Back to training, boy."  
   
They headed back to the impromptu shooting range Dean had set up when they'd first started "training." Dean opened the range bag he'd carried out with them, and handed Sam the Glock, watched him load it and go through the safety steps.  
   
Sam took his stance, and Dean stepped in. "Okay, good, just, a couple of pointers here..."  
   
He took Sam's elbows, and guided his arms into the correct position. "And spread your legs a bit more..." He tapped inside of Sam's knee. "Bend your knees, just a little..." and when Sam had adjusted them to Dean's satisfaction, ran his hands back up Sam's legs, skipping to rest them on his hips. "Good. Now, turn...just a tiny bit, just like you did the other day, remember?"  
   
Basically, all Sam remembered of that was Dean's hands on him, how warm and heavy they'd been on his waist, how he'd squeezed—not tightly, just a solid weight resting on him.  
   
Sam shivered and leaned back into the touch, tentatively, ready for Dean to shove him away. Instead, Dean stepped closer himself, his hands rested on Sam's waist, just like they had before.  
   
 "You're so small here, Sam, I can practically wrap my hands around you," he whispered in Sam's ear. "But your shoulders, your hands. Still growing, aren't ya...fuck, you're gonna get so fucking big." He shivered, and it telegraphed through Sam like a shot of electricity. His hands went from Sam's hips to his belly, slid slowly upwards until he clasped them over Sam's chest. "God, you gonna tell me to stop? I should stop, this is...a thousand kinds of wrong. You, me. What I want...it's fucked up."  
   
Dean laughed, high-pitched and a little shocky, like he was just getting what an understatement that was. He exhaled, his breath hot against Sam's neck, sending a jolt through him. Sam rode that jolt, pressing back, gasping when Dean met him, and ground against him, a slow, deep pressure against his ass. Sam's heartbeat sped up, the little hitches in Dean's breath sounded so loud in his ear.  
   
"You're all I can see, can think about, it's like you're right here, all the time..." Sam tapped Dean's hands where they were linked over Sam's heart. "It's so fucked up, but I can't—not to hurt you, but I'm not feeling you as my brother."  
   
"Oh. I'm…" Dean's hands slid down to Sam's hips again, his grip barely this side of painful. It made Sam feel surrounded by Dean, grounded, owned...his hips jerked at that thought. _Owned._    He liked it...not that he had any plans of sharing that feeling with Dean. He could just imagine what he'd would do with that….  
   
"I'm there with you." Dean was groaning, his teeth grazing Sam's earlobe, his dick grinding slow and steady against Sam's ass. Sam started jerking in Dean's grip "Trying to get free, are ya—" He cocked his head, trying to catch Sam's eyes, and smiled—then frowned, his tone shifting from turned on to concerned. "Wait, are you tryin' to get free, Sammy?"  
   
"No! Let me, fuck, let me—" Sam was trying to shove his pants down, twisting in Dean's hold as he did, but Dean wasn't letting him move.  
   
"No, no, it's okay, it's good just like this," he said, inching his hand into Sam's pants, grunted when his fingers grazed Sam's dick. "Damn, you're big, already so wet." He curled his hand around Sam, started jerking Sam off, flooding his ear with praise, encouragement. They were pressed together tightly; Sam could feel Dean's heartbeat against his back. Sam's head dropped back to Dean's shoulder, his neck arched so tight he could feel his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed, and loud? He was damn thankful Bobby was hours away by now. Sam shoved a knuckle between his teeth and bit down, trying to muffle himself; he ignored Dean's self-satisfied little laugh.  
   
"Jerk," Sam groaned, shuddering as the first tingling tendrils of orgasm crept up his spine, tightened his muscles. It was awful how Dean jerking him off in a junkyard was becoming the best sex he'd ever had; before this, it had been that one uncertain fuck with that kid Jess had shoved between them; he remembered how it felt to have had his dick swallowed up in pulsing, velvety heat, while Jess had fucked him stupid with a ridiculous hot-pink strap-on—  
   
 The helpless rush of climax poured through him like a deep, hot shock. Sam grit his teeth against the scream that wanted to break loose, and came so hard it almost hurt—he shot come up Dean's wrist, his forearm, heard Dean's grunt of surprise and almost laughed. He wasn't the only one. Sam reached behind him and grabbed Dean in a grip he knew had to hurt, forcing him into grinding harder against his ass, the tissue-soft material of his jeans providing no barrier to the heat, the feel of Dean. Sam felt Dean's dick jerk, heard him gasp. He felt heat against his ass and fuck, knowing Dean came because of him was so hot….  
   
Dean's slumped forward, his his head rolled to rest against Sam's. "Oh god, Sammy. Shit. I think I strained my whole body."  
   
"Yeah? Yeah...oh my god." Sam staggered when Dean finally eased his grip on him. "I...wow."  
   
"Definitely me too." Dean looked up at Sam, and smiled self-consciously.  He looked beautiful, the setting sun glinting off his piercings, freckles standing out on his red-flushed skin, beads of sweat highlighting cheekbones and jaw. "Hey, we gotta go in and get cleaned up."  
   
Sam blinked, staring into Dean's eyes, watching sweat roll down his cheeks. He felt a slick little wiggle of fear in his gut, anxiety trying to dig its claws in. "So...what does this, I mean...it's no big deal, right?" Sam sighed, eyes dropping to blaze holes in the dirt between his feet. "I mean, it's not like we feel...related."  
   
   
"What? Are you saying this was nothing? Sam. Sam, look at me, please? I've been with a lot of people—"  
   
"Oh, I know, I get it—"  
   
"A lot of people, Sam." Dean broke in, his voice raising over Sam's. "I've been with, god," Dean scrubbed his hand across his head, giving Sam a miserable look. "Lots."  
   
"I said, I get it."  
   
"No, Sammy, that's not the point I was tryin' to make. I've been more than around and it's never, never, been like this. I've done some freaky ass shit, and nothing's ever felt as good as just...this."  
   
"You're kidding. You're kidding me, right...no?"  
   
Dean shook his head, still bright red, and grinned. "No."  
   
Sam had no idea why, but his eyes pricked—he felt the hot press of tears welling up, and bit the inside of his cheek viciously. Fuck, he wasn't about to go all girl, it's just... Dean cared about him. Finally, _somebody_ really cared.  
   
"Oh shit. I'm sorry, shit, are you okay?" Dean staggered back, already going pale, eyes huge and round and terrified.  
   
"No!" Sam reached out, grabbed Dean and yanked him back, wrapping himself around him. "I mean, yes! I'm good. Promise."  
   
He felt some of Dean's tension ease then. "Okay then," he mumbled against Sam's chest. "Okay."  
   
"I mean, sure, we'll have to talk. We're brothers, and that's something we'll have to fa—"  
   
"We will, I swaer, the minute we get a chance, but right the fuck now, I really need a shower. And some clean pants."  
   
Sam agreed. They'd shower, and Sam would wrestle down this vague feeling of guilt, and deal with the fact that it was only vague. Dean was eyeing him from the corner of his eye. Sam had to admire the seemingly guilt-free facade his brother was throwing up. He'd sell a kidney for a ten-minute look inside his brother's pretty head, Sam thought.  
 

~o0o~

   
Sam had to admit, he felt some relief at leaving Bobby's. Bobby Singer was a great guy; so smart Sam envied him, slyly funny, hiding behind his 'I'm just an old country bumpkin' mask. But since he came back, Sam found having to watch every look and word to Dean was stressful in the extreme. The stress affected Dean as well, he was a little grumpy—grumpy, fuck, he was kind of being a dick.  And Bobby...he noticed something as off. Well, that wasn't a miracle. Probably blind monks could see there was something weird between the two of them. Sam was grateful Dean told Bobby they were headed out. Dean whispered to Sam they'd get a motel, even though the ride was all of seven hours, practically around the corner for Dean.   
   
 They booked a room in a nondescript, fairly new motel; cheap, bland and beige, but clean, which scored points with Sam. Dean hummed one of his old-dude songs as he unpacked, tossing socks and boxers at Sam's head just to be a bitch. Sam rummaged around in his pack, looking for a clean change of clothing in the pitiful handful of things he had. "Hey, Dean, any possibility we can get me some basic stuff? I've been living out of this tiny bag you brought me and, I gotta say, it's getting old."  
   
Dean looked up, surprised. "Well, aren't we a diva?" Sam gave him the look he reserved for idiots, and Dean laughed. "Okay, okay...we can hit up the Wal-mart. Go clothes shopping." He shot Sam an exaggerated leer. "But no lingerie. Not this time."  
   
"Fuck you." Sam said, trying to smother a laugh.  
   
He kind of liked it, wandering through the aisles with Dean on his heels, bitching about Sam's choices, the prices, tossing odd things in the cart—"Here, we need this lotion. I'm almost out of witch hazel. M&Ms are the food of gods, Sammy. Do you think this stuff actually tastes like cherries? No one is going to care if we buy KY, little girl." t almost felt domestic. Sam glanced around, catching the odd, appraising look from folks around them. He felt like an ass, but he put a little space between himself and Dean. He didn't want Dean to notice that people were noticing them, and blow up Sam's little domestic bubble.  
   
 They headed back to the car, plastic bags in hand, Dean busily being border-line inappropriate with a cherry lollipop. Sam tried not to trip over his own feet watching him practically swallow it. His cheeks were blazing, and his chest went tight with the desire to smack the smirk off his brother's face. Dean really was a jerk.  
   
Halfway through Traveling Riverside Blues  playing at an earsplitting volume, Dean leaned forward and lowered the sound. "Hey, I think someone's following us."  
   
Sam took a brief moment to wonder about his life when he didn't even question the statement, just asked, "What are you going to do?"  
   
Dean shrugged. "See what they want."  
   
They drove on in silence, Dean eyes dancing from the rear-view mirror and what was behind them, to the road ahead. They reached the Starlight Inn, rolling along at a steady pace and smoothly pulled into the driveway. He motioned Sam to stay seated, and they waited, but the car Dean had an eye on went past without slowing. They sat, watching its taillights fade into the dark.  
   
"Guess they weren't after us," Sam said.  
   
"Yeah." Dean said, tapping that chunky, silver lighter, which had suddenly appeared in his hand, against the steering wheel. "Maybe."  
   
   
Once they were back in the room, Dean gently pointed Sam at the bathroom after they unpacked their bags. He handed Sam his little pile, and said, "Shower, dude. Not sayin' you need one, but...I'll run out and get some food."  
   
"Fuck you—and get me something grease-free."  
   
"Yes, ma'am." He dodged Sam's punch, ruffled his hair as he danced past. Sam grinned back, helpless as always against Dean; Dean smiled, whispered, "You're so easy," before touching his lips to Sam's, then sweeping out the door so quickly Sam didn't have a chance to react. It took him a minute or two before his brain re-engaged.  
   
"You...jerk." His hand drifted towards his mouth, but he caught himself and shook his head. "Shower."  
   
 Sam unfolded a new pair of flannel sleep pants and a soft, Henely-style sleep shirt across the toilet tank, taking a second to run the material through his fingers. It was nice to have more than one pair of sleep pants again. Wearing Dean's had been like wearing culottes.  
   
In the shower, under a warm and relaxing spray, muscles he hadn't noticed were pulled tight relaxed. It felt good. The shower was no Missouri-level of hedonism by a long shot, but it was a damn sight better than the little plastic box he'd had to crouch in to get wet at Bobby's. His fingers were nice and slick with foamy shower gel, slipping around his belly, his pecs, under his pits. Between his legs...he kind of idly cupped himself, just a stroke or two with no real intent in mind. An image of Dean in the driver's seat of his car flickered in his mind, sunlight highlighting the subtle gold-streaks in his hair, illuminating freckles. His little companion voice whispered _you're such a perv...good taste though..._

He dried himself off—sparing a moment to mourn those wonderful, thick, Turkish towels Missouri had—and played with the idea of strolling back into the room without a towel. Sam sighed and reached for his clothes—he'd do a naked stroll some other time. Talk first, everything else would come later.  
   
 Sam had just poked his head through the neck of the Henley, shaking his hair back out of his eyes, when a loud crash startled him, the thin bathroom wall shaking under an impact. "Dean?"  
   
"Dean?" Sam yelled, smashing through the door, going into one of the defensive positions Dean taught him when shock hit him like a punch to the gut. He staggered to a stop. It took a long minute before he was able to sort out just what he was seeing. Dean was fighting with his old roommate, Brady.  
   
"Brady? What the fuck—Brady!"    
   
"Stay back, Sam! Shit!" Dean swung away from Sam, grappling with Brady, trying to pull Brady's hands from his neck. He was growling, jabbing and punching at Brady, who was punching and jabbing back, but in an odd, off-kilter way, like he was drunk, or high. He was doing more staggering about, and pawing at Dean then actually landing any hits. Brady kept grabbing at Dean, but with every contact, he hissed like an exploding tea-pot and jerked his hands off.  It looked as if Brady couldn't touch Dean without hurting himself. And when Dean swung around putting his back to Sam, he got why.  
   
His t-shirt was shredded under Brady's grip, revealing his tattoo, the one of the cross formed of Latin words that followed the line of his spine.

It was an inflamed red mess; so red, it almost looked to be glowing. There were welts all over his back, scratches that covered his shoulders in blood—the both of them were spattered with it, and Sam panicked, not being able to tell who the hell was bleeding.  
   
He flew towards Dean's bed, snatching up the bag that was shoved partially under the fallen bedspread. Just like he hoped, it was the bag that held the pointy, noisy stuff, thank god, and not Dean's laundry. He began yanking stuff out of it, frantically tossing it over his shoulder: a box of charcoal, a knife, a plastic shaker full of salt...a neon-blue bike bottle. It was full, the contents sloshed when he picked it up and he mentally crossed his fingers, hoped he'd scored what he needed. He rolled to his knees and squeezed a stream towards the Brady-shaped thing biting down on Dean's arm, his once-upon-a-time best friend.  
   
Brady shrieked as the steam Sam kind of half-way expected rolled off of him in waves—it was still shocking, even knowing what would happen, it made his guts tighten and roil.  
   
Dean kicked Brady away, sent Sam a wobbly smile. He seemed okay as far as Sam could see. He took a deep breath of relief. _Safe again._    Brady was down and Dean would deal with him...and then a horrible thought crept up on him.  
   
"Oh, fuck, no…" Sam prayed that Brady found them on his own, that he wouldn't have to see..."Fuck," he whispered.  
   
Jess was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, a big, shit-eating grin on her face that was so horribly wrong on Jess's sweet face, it sent Sam staggering back a step or two.  
   
"Hey, Sammy, how's it going? Long time no see."  
   
It wasn't Jess. That the thing in the doorway couldn't be Jess. The state of her clothes made Sam wonder if she'd been sleeping on the ground; the design on the blue t-shirt she wore was partially obscured by badly dabbed smears of what Sam hoped was mud. Her blonde curls were tangled, her face, her hands, were grimy. Somehow worse than all that, Sam heard an undertone of something unnatural—a bubbling, rasp, a hint of thickness—in her voice that scared him now that he knew the truth.  
   
If he'd ever doubted Dean's word, ever doubted himself, this was proof. He understood now, deeply and thoroughly, that this was not his girlfriend, not even a little bit.  
   
 "Don't fucking call me that, you freak," Sam snarled, his voice breaking with anger—grief. "You're not Jess."  
   
 It was horrible that nothing about her had changed; under the grime, she was as beautiful as she'd always been. She looked just like the day he met her: tall, tan, blonde….  
   
There was no trace of the slug Dean had put in the back of her head.  
   
Dean, meanwhile, was grunting, obviously in pain, as he crab-walked quickly as he could back to the bag Sam had rifled through. He shoved a hand in when he fetched up against it.  He started muttering something, but Sam could hardly hear it, couldn't tell what Dean was saying over the sound of Not-Jess's high-pitched laughter.  
   
The demon stuttered into silence, hands on its waist like it had been painful to laugh so hard; it was wiping at its eyes like it'd heard the most hysterical joke. "Oh my, hunters—they are such cut-ups…" It tilted its head, blonde hair draping one side of its face...Sam could see bits of leaves and a tiny twig caught up in the curls.  
   
"So, little hunter, such a smart boy...with all that shit scrawled all over you, I can't smoke in, but _you_   Sammy, are free game. Whatya say? I don't think the higher-ups will mind too much if I get inside you one more time. Take you for a spin. You owe me, anyway," it snarled. "It's been a bitch hunting you down again...fucking Singer and his goddamn wards. You know what it's like to sleep in the fucking woods? Of course you don't."  
   
It took a step closer, but Dean jumped in the way. "Well," he said, "you can try to smoke in, bitch, if you can get past me. _Excorcizamus te omnis—"_  
   
Brady was back, snarling and yanking Dean's head back by the scant handful of hair he managed to grab. Sam scrambled towards the two—he had no idea what he was going to do, but fuck if he was going to stand there and watch Brady scalp Dean.  
   
Brady bowled Dean over; Dean was rolling across the floor with Brady trying to eat into his neck, trying to stop Dean from speaking. Dean kept doggedly on, despite Brady's jaws on him. It was a prayer, a chant, something that Sam's brain told him was Latin but his heart was telling him was really fucking dangerous. He jumped over an over-turned chair, charging at the two rolling on the floor, tripping over a flap of carpet and wind-milling his way towards them.  
   
"No, no fuck—stay put, Sam, damn it—" Dean cursed when Jess darted towards Sam...smoke was lazily oozing out of her mouth, dancing around her face, flirty, little tendrils reaching out towards Sam…  
   
"Oh god, Sam _—Ominus, Encursio, Infernalis—"_

   
Sam landed on his knees, staring spellbound at Brady and Dean, who twisted around each like tentacles on a squid.  
   
The faster Dean spit Latin, yelling it in his desire to get it out, the more Brady screamed. He clawed at his mouth, ripping at it, his jaws opening wider than Sam imagined was possible as he vomited clouds and clouds of thick, black smoke.  
   
Jess was backpedaling, her hands clamped viciously over her mouth. Sam could see the panic in her eyes; when she caught him looking at her, her fear was overcome by her obvious fury. She whirled and sprinted for the door.  
   
Sam jumped when the door slammed shut behind her, loud as a gunshot, then stared in horror as Dean shouted, _"Te rogamus, audi nos—_ you piece of shit!" and Brady dropped like he was boneless, his body spreadeagled on the carpet, emitting a thin, last tendril of smoke. Dean rolled him over, and grimaced. "Shit...we need to get rid of him."  
   
"Oh god, he's dead?" Sam looked down at his former best friend, watching blood seep from what looked like dozens of wounds.  
   
"No," Dean panted, "but he's fucked up pretty good. We'll drop him off at the closest ER and then beat it out of town. Fuck."  
   
"And Jess?"  
   
"Shit, Sammy. I don't know. But as soon as we get a chance, we're going to take care of something." Dean laid his hand on Sam's chest, fingers spread wide and his palm resting right over his heart. "You need an anti-possession tat. They're gunning for you, harder now. The more we can do to protect you the better. I mean, you don't have to go as far as I have," Dean said, and tapped between his shoulder blades. "You don't need a Benedict's cross, or any of these sigils I have down my ribs here, but a modified Solomon's seal, like this," he pulled the rags of his shirt aside and pointed out the star in a circle of flames, "should be good enough for you. For right now though, you're gonna wear that charm 'Ssouri gave you at all times, got me It'll do fine for low level bastards like the one that possessed this poor bastard."   
   
Sam stared at Dean, realizing that what he was saying, without speaking it out loud was, _this is not your life, Sam, you can leave after this._  
   
_Sure. Fuck you, Dean._   "Yeah, okay." Sam bent, and grabbed Brady's legs, Dean grabbed his arms. They got him into the car, trying their best not to injure him further. Between the two of them they emptied the room of their stuff and headed for the highway, looking for signs to a hospital.  
   
Sam was fucking grateful Brady stayed unconcious the whole time, even through being dragged back out of the car, and left on the street. It was close by the ER, where Dean said some smoker would find him, but Sam still felt like the worst kind of shithead doing it, leaving him with nothing, hoping someone would see him before it got worse.  
   
Dean threw an arm around Sam and tugged him away from his former friend, keeping him close as they staggered back to the car. "Yeah, this is the shitty part of the job. When it ends like this, it sucks hard. But there's nothing else we can do. ‘C'mon, Sam. This is...well, welcome to the world I live in."

Sam nodded, his understanding of his brother growing. What a lonely, sad life.

~o0o~


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four**

They drove into Fitchburg, Wisconsin, just past sundown. They cruised down street after street, past motels and hotels until finally a squat little motel hunkered down between an old fashioned five-and-dime style store and what looked like a boarding house met some criteria known only to Dean. 

Parking in the lot facing the motel, Dean tossed Sam his backpack, grabbed a dufflebag from the trunk, and motioned Sam to follow him into the tiny office. The motel was shabby, but not the kind of shabby that meant filthy rooms. The narrow lobby was age-worn, but clean, even fresh-smelling; a vase of fresh flowers sat on one end of the long counter. Behind the counter, through a wide doorway, Sam could see what looked like living quarters—a couch, an overstuffed chair, some books and what looked like toys scattered across the floor. This was definitely not a chain motel, more of a family business, which accounted for the small, homey touches.

There was a very short person behind the counter. When he turnedaround to face them, Sam raised an eyebrow. "What the hell?"

It was a kid who looked to be no more than—thirteen? A short fourteen?—behind the counter. Where the hell were his parents? Sam wondered. Said kid turned a very unimpressed eye on Sam and drawled,"Yeah? Can I help you—" He glanced over at Dean, browsing through the magazines on a stand near the door, just tucking a cigarette behind his ear as the kid looked at him. Dean looked up and winked, lip curling up at one side, his collar sliding so that his neck tatts were on view, light glinting off his piercings. 

The kid turned back to Sam and smirked.

"We don't rent by the hour," he sneered. 

"What— _no—_ no, he's my, my. Brother," Sam stuttered and cursed internally at how fake that sounded. "Really," he insisted, until it occurred to him he was trying to convince some punk little kid whose business it definitely was not.

"Hey, I don't judge. We don't judge here. So...you two want a king?"

"No! Two beds. Two queens."

The kid shook his head. "Sure, two queens. Gotcha." He printed out a receipt and slid a pair of keys over. "Room 12. Sorry it's not the honeymoon suite."

"Whatever, kid," Sam growled, curling his hand over the keys. "Isn't it past your bedtime? Who lets a kid run a place like this anyway? Where're your parents?"

Dean came up behind Sam, and to his great annoyance, rested a hand on the small of his back. Great, now the little punk was really going to assume the worst about them. But the kid was staring at the counter, frowning as he shuffled papers and cards and pointedly tuned Sam out. 

"Hey." Dean leaned around Sam and smiled at the kid. "How's it going? My brother irritating you? What's your name?"

"Michael," the kid muttered and rubbed his eyes before going back to sorting papers. Dean came from behind Sam and slid the room keys from under his hand. He planted his elbows on the counter, which pulled his leather jacket tight across his shoulders and arms. Sam couldn't help but notice how the worn, probably butter-soft leather almost strained around Dean's biceps; he put a little distance between Dean and himself when Michael gave him a knowing look. 

"So. Your folks left you in charge, hunh?" Dean's voice was soft, casual and Michael responded to it. The boy spread his hands on the counter and pushed back from it, looking up at Dean.

"My mom. Just my mom. An' I'm not in charge. I just came out to turn on the 'no vacancies' sign. But you guys were here and I know she needs the guests—anyway she'll be back soon. She's at the hospital. My little brother's sick." He scowled hard, but Sam could tell the scowl was his effort not to appear weak in front of them. He had a feeling if the kid had been alone, he'd have been crying. 

Dean nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that. I bet she trusts you leave you in charge, though. You did a great job checkin' us in." The kid brightened a bit at Dean's casual acceptance. "Alright, we're gonna head out to our room. Any food places open around here? Me and my brother haven't eaten all damn day and we're starvin', dude."

Michael gave them directions to a bar two blocks down that served food as well as booze, information that had Dean all smiles. And why not, Sam thought, when it probably combined two out of his three favorite things. 

They schlepped their bags to their room, Sam standing quietly behind Dean as he unlocked the door. "Did you notice what he said? His little brother was sick," Dean said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"It can be a sign of the shtriga. It goes after siblings, the easiest first."

"You mean like...me. Because I was alone."

"Sam...yeah. Like you. Because I left you by yourself and fucked up my job."

"Dean, you were a kid! You couldn't be on me twenty-four/seven. Dad should have warned you what was going on, not just leave you with some vague instructions. Besides, there was no way you could have succeeded. He's the one that screwed up—well, shit, you know what I mean, not him, the, the thing that was in him…"

"Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Listen, I'm gonna grab a smoke real quick. I'll bring us back something to eat."

Sam sighed as he dropped his bag at the side of one of the beds. He didn't need to have grown up with Dean to know that right now, his brother was feeling his supposed fuck-up hard and taking all of the blame for it. He could hear the click of Dean's heavy, old-fashioned lighter. He heard him inhale, and exhale, and the smell of smoke crept around the door frame. He could hear Dean's boots hitting the pavement, getting fainter as he headed across the parking lot. 

Shaking his head, Sam reached into the bag and pulled out the new pair of sleep pants and...a really large t-shirt that had been tucked under he rest of his new clothes. The thing was purple, with what looked like a lilac greyhound on the front—it was weird, and made no sense, but Sam smiled, instantly loving it. There was a Wal-mart tag still hanging from the shirt. So, Dean had bought him a gift—and then hidden it. He was an interesting guy, his brother, apparently sentimental, but shy about it. Sam laughed, pulled the tee on and laid out on the bed, stroking over the soft material. Dean looking out for him like this was nice, and something he think he could get used to.

~o0o~

Breakfast was a nice surprise. They'd dropped by the office and ran into his mother. After checking with her on her son's condition and finding he was stable, the conversation had turned towards local attractions and places to eat. The place she'd recommended served one of the best breakfasts Sam had ever eaten. He did his best not to moan as he forked up some truly delicious corned-beef hash, and he didn't even like corned-beef hash. Dean squinted at him and growled, "I'd have got you your own, but I thought you weren't a carnivore." He pushed Sam's hand away from his plate. "Eat your pancakes and leave my grub alone."

Sam snickered. "You're such an old guy in a young guy's body."

"A smokin' _hot_ young guy's body," Dean said, and Sam blushed and hid behind his bangs, because, yeah...Dean was smoking hot. 

"You're so cute, Sammy," Dean laughed. "C'mon, you're a college boy—casual sex is required, isn't it? Get drunk, get laid?"

"No, for god's sake. All you know about college comes from crappy '80s movies, doesn't it? I didn't...I…" Sam's cheeks went red-hot. He opened his mouth to say it was none of Dean's damn business, but what came out was, "Except for...for...y'know…" They both blushed, Dean hiding his mouth behind his hand, but meeting Sam's eyes. "Anyway, I've only ever been with one girl, ever, and that was Jess."

"Really? Wow. That's, unh, that's nice. Good for you, I guess?" Dean was certainly trying, but he didn't sound convincing. Having technically had only one partner ever probably seemed like an impossibility to him. 

Again, Sam's mouth blurted out things without his permission. "You know about my parents, how strict they were. They were...smothering was the way I began to describe it when I left home. So along with everything else they required...yeah, total virgin until Jess." 

His eyes pricked unpleasantly, remembering how he and Jess used to be. They'd had so much fun, and sex had been a revelation with her. It had been so happy between them, so loving, so intimate...until gradually it hadn't been. Sam felt himself go hot with embarrassment. The last thing he wanted to think about was everything Jess had introduced him to in the last few months, not with Dean sitting across from him, not with the memory of the so-much-better sex he'd had recently 

"Smothering, hunh?" Dean chuckled. "Yeah, good, old Uncle Bobby, not so much; the man gave me a bag of condoms and a lecture." Dean shook his head. "So I slept with a lot of girls." 

Sam paused, fork full of pancakes in the air and a confused look on his face. "I thought you were, y'know…?"

"Oh well, yeah, girls are nice, too. Besides, I was in high school, in a little town where everyone knew everyone's else's business. I mean, not like I didn't like sex with women. It's just, my preference got clearer to me as I got older." He winked at Sam and Sam wanted to hide under the table. "What about, y'know, you? You said girl, what about other guys?"

Sam jerked so hard his knee slammed into the underside of the table and everything rocked. "B-besides you? Only that once..."

It was Dean's turn to blush now, probably remembering Sam's retelling of the circumstances. He looked sad, but smiled softly at Sam after a few seconds. "It's okay, Sammy."

Maybe, Sam thought, but he'd been eyeballing his brother's mouth during the entire meal and wondering when or if he can kiss him. The little voice told him that should make him feel like a pervert. It really should.

But it doesn't.

~o0o~

"So, tell me more about this shtriga."

"Umm," Dean tucked the end of a pen in his mouth, and Sam's eyes went there like lasers. He pouted around the end of it as he pulled up a file on his laptop. "Okay, so...Bobby sent me a bunch of info…" He clicked through a file, opened something Sam saw was labled a 'kill doc'. "This creature is a tricky sonofabitch. It's got to be feeding to be ganked. Feeding is the only time its vulnerable, 'cause it has to open itself in order to absorb a life force, which means its own life force is unguarded. The good thing is, once it is unguarded, almost anything can kill it. Iron, though, will cleanse it. If we can get a few iron rounds into it, that'll wipe it out—make it sure it stays dead."

 _Stays dead?_ Sam felt that weird swoop-flip in his gut, the feeling he got when things started flying off track...the feeling that signaled a panic attack on its way. What the fuck had his life become? 

Dean looked up, eyes narrowing at Sam. "Hey, you gonna be okay?" He leaned over and gripped Sam's shoulder, his hand sliding up to cup his neck. "This is kinda crazy. Scary, even, I know. And you don't remember any of this—hell, we hadn't told you anything at the point you were taken."

"No, I'm okay. I want to know about it. How to...to kill it, so it doesn't hurt any kids again. So, um...who's it gonna feed on, you or me?"

Dean made a face like he'd bitten into something bitter. "I...the shtriga feeds on the youngest first. But neither of us make good bait. For one thing, it'll catch on that we're hunters—well, I'm a hunter—right off the bat. Plus, we're too old. We need..." Dean's voice trailed off and Sam's gut went cold. 

"Fuck, Dean, no. We can't...can't ask some kid to be _bait!_ That's so fucking twisted."

"And that's the fucking life, Sammy. It sucks sometimes, so fuckin' hard. But if we can save kids, if we can kill some evil sonofabitch, it's all worth it."

"And what happens if it kills the kid? What then?"

"That's not gonna happen, Sam. I won't let it."

Dean sounded so convinced, so confident, that Sam just mentally threw up his hands. He had to put his trust in Dean, trust that things would work out the way he said it would.

~o0o~

Sam rifled through the dozens of print-outs Dean had spread over the table, and scoured his files. So far he'd found out that shtrigas were probably the source of the old-hag-witch image. They tended to take on the images of elderly women, probably because in the old days, the old and infirm were left behind as the healthy, stronger members of the community went out to gather food or hunt. They naturally took care of the children...and that's where a monster able to look like a sweet, little, old lady had it made. It could pick through the children at their heart's content—or whatever thing was inside it that made it go.

He was worked his way through a decent BLT while idly poking at Dean's laptop. Across the table, Dean scarfed down a cheeseburger and belittled Sam's dietary choices. Again. It was a good thing Sam got that Dean teasing him was practically the same as Dean declaring his undying love, so he restrained himself from tipping Dean's chair over. 

Out of curiosity, Sam brought up the hospital the kids had been taken to, looking through the website. He was basically killing time, just doing it to have something to do. He clicked through the website, clicked on pediatrics. There were shiny, cheerful photos of parents and babies, nurses and babies, happy tots...and in a small inset picture, a grandmotherly woman with a baby. _Cuddlers_ Sam read. _Giving sick children the extra support and intercation to help..._ "Holy shit," he whispered.

He called Dean over from where he was industriously filling one of his bags with, hopefully, shtriga-killing stuff. He ambled over, a Twizzlers trapped between his teeth. "Tryin' not to smoke," he muttered and Sam went warm all over. He knew Dean was doing it for him, and that was...was really nice. He wanted to lean over and snatch that Twizzler away, give Dean his mouth instead. Sam tucked his desperate, inner-teenage girl away, and swiveled the laptop so that Dean could see it too. "So, get this," he said, making the picture bigger. "The local hospital here has a program called Cuddlers—grandmotherly-types who volunteer to hold babies, read little tots bedtime stories...you know, interact with the kids."

Dean reared back, the forgotten Twizzlers hitting the desk. "Sonofabitch, boy. I think you got it. Goddamn, Sam, you got it."

Sam felt a ridiculous degree of pleasure at that. His whole body thrummed with warmth when Dean looped his arm around Sam's neck and muttered, "Damn good work," into the side of his head.

~o0o~

"Yeah, we went in for a check-up, and Asher got sick pretty soon after that," Michael said, suspicious eyes on Sam and his brother. "Why?"

Dean sneaked a quick look at Sam and Sam gave him a microscopic shrug. This was Dean's show. He was the one who had a—a bond or something with the kid. For some reason, the kid did not like Sam. 

Dean huffed out a breath, rubbed his hand over his head. "Look...Mike. Your brother, he's not sick like regular sick. Some...thing is making him sick. It got into your room and it. It made your brother...okay, crap, this really sounds crazy, I get it. You got no reason to believe me—"

Michael chewed his lip, looking up at Dean through a long fringe of blonde hair. He hesitated and then asked, "Does...does this thing have, like, long, skinny, black fingers, like sort of twiggy lookin'?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded his head, his relief evident. "Yeah, Mike, it does. It's a monster, a kid-killing monster, and me and my brother are out to stop it."

Michael looked surprised for a moment, and Sam nodded at him. _Yep, kid. Brothers._ Instead of snickering like Sam expected, Michael shook his head slightly, gave Sam and Dean both a somewhat sympathetic look before turning his attention back to Dean.

"How?"

"Well...that's where you come in, I hope. We need someone to draw it out...someone to play, uh, play…"

"Bait!" Michael's eyes went wide. He took a few steps back, putting himself out of arm's reach. "You want me to be—no. Fuck you, in fact." 

"Dude—language," Dean said, like he was on parent duty, then "Hey!" as Michael stomped away. The door to the family's apartment slammed, and Dean and Sam both jumped. 

Dean turned to Sam, an unhappy grimace on his face, his hand sweeping back over his head. "Damn it. So...screwed the pooch on that, I guess."

"What did you expect, Dean? Did you really think it was gonna go any other way?"

Dean shook his head, and headed out to the parking lot. Sam sighed when he saw Dean flip the cigarette pack into his hand. Sam couldn't think of anything better to do, so he headed back to their room, thinking about Dean and his incredible belief that the whole world was full of knights in shining armor, full of guys like him willing to sacrifice it all to save a single person and consider it a deal well played. 

Dean came into the room an hour later, holding a six-pack and a bag that smelled like tacos. Sam scooted up from where he'd been laying on the bed, trying to read a book he'd found in the nightstand drawer. It was...odd. Kind of erotic in a weird way, and it was making him feel...not uncomfortable, more...yearning. And now that Dean was back in the room, Sam knew exactly what it was he was feeling, but had no way of asking whether Dean was feeling the same. At this point, he was afraid to ask. Dean was a closed book. 

Sam watched his brother move around the room, taking his coat off, the way it pulled his shirts tight across his shoulders, bending to take off his shoes and the way his jeans framed a perfect ass.

"I'm so screwed," Sam muttered under his breath, and tried to be subtle about sliding his pillow into his lap. 

Dean launched into a vivid description of the bar he'd bought the six-pack from. More to the point, one of the bartenders he'd bought it from. "And she kept putting her tits in my face like that meant something. Now, if the other bartender had wanted to shove his chest in my face, well…"

Sam struggled to keep his face blank, but he couldn't keep a leash on his mouth. "I guess that's why you took so long. Nice of you not to deprive her. Or him. That's your MO, right?"

Dean froze mid-sentence. He fixed Sam with a look that sent a shiver up his spine. "Okay, I don't know where the attitude is coming from or why—" 

Sam huffed, and rolled his eyes. _Of course he didn't._

Dean sighed. He carefully put the six-pack and the taco bag down on the table. "Look, you don't really know how I work, okay? You don't get to make any kind of judgment on my life, like I don't get to make any judgment on yours. So, we're going to rewind this moment, and you're going to sit down with me and we're going to eat these fuckin' tacos and make nice conversation—got it?"

Sam nodded, short and quick, and slid into place at the little table. Dean passed him a couple of tacos, and opened a beer and set it in front of Sam. "So, talk," he said.

"I, uh, I uh…"

Dean snorted, losing a few bits of lettuce when he did. He swallowed. "You're cute, Sammy. Don't worry about it, go ahead and eat up."

Sam promptly snatched up his taco and bit down. "S'good," he mumbled around his mouthful. "Thanks for this, I was getting hungry."

"It's alright, Sam, it's my job to feed you, right? And Sam…" Dean waited until Sam met his eyes, said, "I flirt a lot, but it doesn't mean anything, okay? Just...a lot of bark, not much bite." Sam snorted, and Dean shot him a smile. "What say after this, we go check out those grandmas? I think you're right, one of these old broads just might be the thing we're looking for."

Sam felt that ridiculous wave of warmth sweep him again. The goofy part of his mind woke up and rolled over. _You're so easy to please!_ it crowed. _But it does feel good to be appreciated, doesn't it?_ it said, before fading away.

~o0o~

They went into the hospital under the guise of reporters for a small, local-type of paper, looking for feel-good stories. The elderly ladies were like most elderly ladies everywhere. A little shy, proud of what they were doing but not obnoxious about it. Sam watched them holding the babies, singing to them, gently bouncing crying little bits of human beings and it hit him that if anyone had done that for him, it had been probably been Dean. Dean was watching them too, his gaze hawk-sharp, but there was something else in there too. Dean turned and caught Sam looking at him. Dean smiled, a little half-smile that softened his eyes, then glanced back at a grandmotherly version of Missouri, all curves and softness. She had a tiny, tiny human in her arms, and smiled as she looked up at Dean.

"This little sweetheart reminds me of my own grand-baby. She was a teeny bit of a thing too."

Dean nodded. "So, how long have you been doing this?" he asked. 

"Oh, quite a while now. Probably...three, four years? Soon as the program started," she said. "Most of us here came on as soon as they put out a call for volunteers. We're all old friends here. Well, except for Maude. She's new."

Sam could see Dean shift subtly into Doberman mode. Sam stepped up next to him, tablet in hand. He'd been taking 'notes' with the grand-moms' permission, and taking dozens of photos—everything Dean pointed out to him. Dean glanced at him and asked the woman—Gloria—if Maude would mind talking to him. 

"Oh, she's not here today. Strange, she usually is."

"So, she's new? How long has she been here, then—a year or two?" Dean smiled at her and Sam had to admire the way he went about getting info. Gloria was only too happy to correct him. 

"Oh no, more like two months. She's from out of town...honestly, I'm not sure from where, but she's so caring. She really loves these babies. Not only that, she volunteers on the children's ward. Reads to the toddlers, brings them little things she's knitted." Gloria went quiet, and sighed deeply. "So many little ones on that ward are sick right now. Some kind of thing, what my gran used to call a wasting disease, is going 'round. Maude's brave enough to deal with it. Me, I'm not that good a person. I stay right here with the babies. Let the stronger, braver ones deal with the children."

"Don't put yourself down, Gloria. What you're doing is just as important." Dean leaned a little closer. "So, no babies getting this wasting disease? That's a blessing, ain't it?"

"Yes, it really is. Maude...she looked so worn when she first came here. But working with the kids has given her strength and life again. She positively glows now. It's a calling, you know? Her working with the kids? They love her."

"I'm sure they do," Dean said, but his voice had gone so cold that even Gloria noticed. At her startled look, Dean sighed. "I hate for kids to hurt, ma'am. Hate it." 

The sincerity in his voice reeled Gloria back in. "You should talk to Maude. She's in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can come in and talk to her, if you have time?"

"I think we'll make time," Sam said, his hand on Dean's arm. "Thank you kindly."

~o0o~

"Fucking Maude. She's the one, Sam. It's gotta be her."

Sam nodded. Pretty plain that Maude had to be the shtriga, but how did they stop it? "How do we stop her without help?"

Dean shook his head. "We'll just have to try and catch her on her hunting grounds. Sounds like she's nibbling snacks at the hospital."

Sam grimaced at his brother's decidedly indelicate way of putting things. "So, that means...what, we hang around the children's ward like a pair of especially creepy-ass creeps?"

Dean huffed, and threw his file across the table. He took a pull on his beer. "Yeah...and we blew coming in as anything else. We have to figure out when this bitch is coming after the kids. If it's at night, maybe we can pass ourselves off as janitors?"

"Maybe," Sam said, and got up to make a pot of coffee. "You want some, I'll make enough for two—"

"Make enough for ten," Dean said, gathering up his papers again. "Gimme your notes too, maybe one of the grannies mentioned the times killer Maude shows up."

"Yeah, okay." Sam reached for the coffeemaker in the tiny cabinet above the sink and searched around for the packets of coffee grounds. He jumped as the silence was shattered by someone banging on the door like they hated it. Dean swung up out of his chair, his hand going to the back of his pants as he moved, other hand flipping his shirt out of the way. Sam caught the luster of ivory as Dean's fingertips grazed the grip of a nickel-plated handgun. 

"Get behind me, Sam," he hissed and Sam bristled at his tone. Not being an idiot however, he got behind Dean as ordered. A voice called out. "Are you guys gonna open up or are you too busy doing each others nails?"

"Mike!" Dean dashed to the door and yanked it open. "Kid, stop making up stuff about us, willya? Sam's the only one paints his nails." He ignored Sam's affronted 'Hey!' and glanced up and down the hallway before stepping back. "C'mon in, sit down. Don't drink my beer."

Michael rolled his eyes and stomped inside. "If you kill this thing, will Asher get better?" 

"We hope so. Yeah," Dean said hesitantly. "That's the plan." Sam could see he wanted to say, yes, unequivocally, it will, but Dean was honest with the kid, and Sam could see the kid respected that. Michael nodded, eyes on the floor. After a second, he said, "You say you're brothers...well...would you do what you had to? To protect your brother, would you do anything for him?"

Michael raised his head then, and locked eyes with Dean. Sam watched the two hold some kind of silent communication. Yeah, Sam got that Dean would do anything for him—he'd already sacrificed the most important thing he could for Sam, had been younger than Michael when he'd done it. Sam wondered if Dean knew just how much that went both ways now?

"Yeah, Mike. Anything." 

Michael nodded again—conversation over. "Tell me what to do, then."

~o0o~

Sam tracked Dean on his laptop as Dean set up remote cameras in the corners of Michael's room. He'd been surprised when Dean pulled them out of the trunk of his car, though he supposed he shouldn't have been. The Chevelle's trunk had to be bigger on the inside, what with all the compartments and the things Dean pulled out of it as a matter of course: shotguns, handguns, knives and axes, shovels; he swore there was a thing that looked like a rocket launcher or something in there—and spy cameras. He'd mentioned his 'bigger on the inside' theory in an off-hand way to Dean, not expecting any kind of reaction, but was surprised when Dean burst into laughter.

"What, like the Tardis?" he'd chuckled, shaking his head, and had slapped Sam on the back. "Nerd, but you've got good taste."

On the screen, Dean reached up and twisted the camera, then grinned into the lens. "How's that? I look good, right?"

"Whatever...little bit to the left, the left. More left—got it." Michael was sitting in his bed, fully dressed under the covers. He looked sick, a lone kid defenseless against a thing Sam couldn't even imagine. Dean turned towards the kid and Sam could clearly hear him tell Michael what came next. 

"Okay, so. This thing has to get close. I'm sorry. But when it gets to the bed, the minute it touches, you drop down, roll _under_ the bed, you hear? Me and Sam will come right through that door, blasting guns. It's gonna be loud—much louder than on TV, okay? You just dive; you close your eyes, cover your ears and don't move til we say so." 

Dean walked over to the bed, clasped Michael's shoulder. "It's going to be okay. Promise." 

Michael just nodded. "Just...don't shoot me."

"Don't worry about that. I'm a great shot. And Sammy is...not gonna aim in your direction."

"Hey!" Sam yelped. "I heard that!"

Michael grinned at Dean, and seemed a little less tense, which Sam knew was just what Dean had been going for. Dean aimed a smirk at the camera closest to him, and winked. Sam felt his cheeks heat up. Damn Dean. No wonder everyone did whatever he wanted.

~o0o~

They watched Michael try not to fidget on the bed; Dean fidgeted in the chair next to Sam's. He looked too alert—his freckles stood out like cinnamon on snow, and he rolled his lower lip in his teeth repeatedly, until it was dark pink and glistened in the low light of the laptop's screen. Sam fidgeted himself until Dean reached over and clamped his hand over Sam's thigh.

"Hey. It's going to be alright." 

"Yeah, okay...how about you believe that too?"

Dean snorted, eyes never leaving the screen. He squeezed Sam's thigh a little tighter, and Sam cursed himself when his knees automatically tried to spread. He caught Dean's slight hitch of breath, the way his eyes danced over, a lightning quick glance, coupled with a slightly harder squeeze, before his eyes returned to Michael. This is where we should deflect, Sam thought, and picked the topic most likely to steer Dean's attention away from Sam's semi-slutty reaction to his brother's touch. "Hey. I...I get it now, Dean. I understand what you went through. And that you did what you had to, to...save me. And Dad. You saved him, Dean. I'm convinced of that. He wanted you to stop that—that thing inside him."

"Sam—" 

But whatever Dean was about to say was lost. Something was in Michael's room—a dark shadow, crossing the room, wavering in the thin light coming through the window. Sam jumped up, the Glock he'd been training with shaking in his hand. He steadied it by force of will. "That's it, isn't it? Do we—"

"No, no...wait a bit. We need it to get closer…"

A tall, lean woman was crawling inside Michael's bedroom window, white hair tumbling messily around her shoulders, streaks of dirt on her skirt and sweater. Michael lay stock-still on the bed as she crept closer, her hands shrinking, lengthening, to skeletal thin, her hair shimmering, melding into a hood, growing longer and shifting into a hooded robe. The features shifted as well; pink, lined cheeks going paste-white and deeply wrinkled, eyes going from chocolate-brown to a lusterless black, set deeply in its skull. Sam watched it, shock making him waver on his feet; on the edge, but not shutting down. He was not going to shut down when Michael, when _Dean_ needed him.

The shtriga bent over Michael, its maw opening wide. A slight, blueish glow gathered over Michael's body, rising towards the shtriga's open jaws. 

"Now!" Dean shouted, and Michael dropped to the ground, rolling under the bed at the same moment Dean, Sam close behind him, kicked open the door. Dean snapped off a shot, Sam shooting right after him, and the double tap staggered the shtriga, who uttered a weird, warbling wail as it dropped. 

"Good fuckin' job, Sammy, good goddamn shot!"

Sam felt like he'd just been handed the sun and told it was his forever. Dean sounded proud of him, and he fought to keep a goofy grin off his face. The little voice, quiet for so long, spoke up then. _Easy, boy, easy. But yeah, you deserve this._

"Mike," Dean called out as he edged towards the monster who was tumbled in a heap on the floor. "You okay?" 

At Michael's tremulous yes, Dean ordered him to stay put for now. "Let us take out this trash first, okay? Just to be—"

The shtriga rose up and tossed Sam across the room. Sam hit the wall and slid down, and the shtriga was on him in the blink of an eye, with long, cold, clammy fingers wrapping around his jaw, and yanking his mouth open, the skeletal tips slipping inside to pull it wider. Sam gagged violently at the touch of them on his tongue.

The most excruciating pain he'd ever experienced flooded his body. It burned violently, but before he could react he was deflating, lethargic, the pain vanished but a void was opening inside him; a feeling of ice and fire combined filled him, then leaked out of him in painful fits and starts as the shrtiga began draining the life force from him. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream for Dean—and then his brother's voice broke through Sam's paralysis. The horror on top of him shuddered and jerked backwards as Sam took a deep, grateful breath. The sound of a shot registered at the same moment he realized he was totally free.

Dean yanked him to his feet, hands all over him. "You okay, Sammy, you okay?" His hands skimmed over Sam's chest and shoulders and came to rest on his face. _"Sam."_

His fingers moved over curve of Sam's jaw, thumbs coming to rest on either side of his mouth. Sam was frozen, staring at Dean's eyes, the fear, the concern...and heat. Sam was no fool. He knew what he was seeing. This was the moment he'd waited for, the moment that Dean would finally acknowledge what went before. This was a turning point..he leaned forward slightly, and then—

"Yeah, sure... _brothers._ Hey, guys, I hate to break into your make-out session but, can I move or what?"

"Oh, fuck, Mike," Dean stuttered, "Yeah, yeah dude, you're safe. Everyone's safe." His fingers left Sam's face reluctantly...they drifted over Sam's lip, Sam shivered with how intense it felt. Dean mouthed, "Later," and Sam nodded, the thrill of expectation sending gooseflesh racing over his skin. He didn't think he was wrong to feel like _later_ was a promise of something more. 

Michael meanwhile had slithered out from under the bed and was walking gingerly, carefully over to stand behind Dean. "It's dead? Really dead?"

"Yeah. You did it, Mike. Helped us kill this fugly piece of shit." Dean threw an arm around Michael's shoulder, and somehow managed to wrap an arm around Sam's waist as well. Sam leaned into it gratefully. 

None of them spoke as they watched the thing disintegrate until there was nothing left but a fine ash, which Michael stepped up to and spit on. "Screw you, we won; Sam and Dean beat your—your fugly ass," he snapped and Dean patted him on the back. 

Sam shook his head. "Dean did it. Dean beat it," he said.

"Naw, Mike's right. We all did it. We put it down together. We make a hell of a team." He grinned at Sam, a wide, accomplished, happy grin.

~o0o~

They drove Michael to meet his mother at the hospital; she'd called with the good news that Asher had finally turned the corner and was now awake and asking for his big brother. There was no way they could explain to her just what had occurred, but from the way Michael clutched Asher's hand, smiling at them, Sam felt it had been worth every second.

By the time they made it back to their room Sam was done; he felt like he was dragging himself along step-by-step. He kicked off his shoes and let his jacket lay where he dropped it, barely aware of Dean snapping the TV on with the sound turned low. As the sole light, it cast deep shadows in the room, but that was okay with Sam. It made the room look intimate. Cozy. He dropped onto one of the beds and patted the space next to him, fixing Dean with a glare. "Sit. We need to talk. We're not dancing around this thing anymore. What we did at the shooting range—"

Dean groaned like Sam was disemboweling him. "I'm so fucking sorry. I didn't know...I mean, I thought you…I thought we were on the same page."

"You think I'm' pissed off about that? Don't be stupid, of course we were 'on the same page'! God, since we met, I felt this, this, _connection_ between us. Not just, 'wow, here's my long-lost brother' and not just 'oh yay, fucking terrific, he doesn't want to kill me. '"

Dean snorted and rolled his eyes. "Bitch…"

"Sorry. But it's been about you all along, about how...attractive you are. I mean, I've wanted to touch you. Have you touch me. And I'm sorry, but that's a stronger feeling than feeling like we're related. I know we're brothers. I know it. But I also want to touch every bit of you. Feel you, hold you.

"This isn't what I wanted to happen when I came to get you. This won't help protect you, or make your life better. Something's out to fuck your life up, Sammy. I can't help feeling like I'm one of those things you need protection from now."

"Protection? I'm not a kid, you know. I'm twenty-two years old, I've lived on my own and I've made my own decisions now for almost four years. And besides, in a way, I've been on my own most of my life."

"Sammy…"

"I'm not saying that to make you feel bad. I want you to know that I chose to make my own way. And now, I'm choosing you. You should stop worrying, Dean, because you know you want this too. This is what will make me happy, if you care about that." 

Dean nodded, and head down, inched over until he closed the few inches between him and Sam. Sam huffed, grabbed hold of Dean and reeled him in. Dean looked surprised for a second or two, and then his frown eased into a smirk, and he wrapped his hand in Sam's collar. "Well, alright then." 

Sam groaned and crashed his mouth against Dean's, too excited, so that for a few seconds, the kiss was painful and so awkward that Sam wanted to slide off the bed—possibly right under it. Dean just breathed a little laugh, and adjusted their position, coaxing Sam into tilting his head the way he wanted him, so that they fit together perfectly. 

Melting into the kiss, Sam opened to Dean completely, letting Dean's tongue slide in against his. Slow, slick thrusts in and out, Dean grazing Sam's lip with his teeth, licking it smooth. When Dean cupped him and asked him, "Can I open these?" rubbing his knuckles over the already stiff length pressing against Sam's zipper, a full body shudder almost knocked Sam flat—the thought of Dean, touching him, naked against him, made him weak. Sam groaned again, and Dean let his mouth go, licked his lips, and said, "I'd really like to be naked with you. Is that okay?

"I think," Sam took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. "I think, yeah, that would be okay."

Dean started taking his clothes off, and Sam tried to follow suit, but he was mesmerized by Dean's every move, watching fascinated as Dean's tattoos came to light, all of them. His eyes were drawn to the skull on Dean's hip, and then by the dash of freckles dusted over Dean from head to toe, and Sam smiled. 

Dean was beautiful naked. He wasn't starving model perfect, but he was everything Sam wanted, with his bowed legs, the little swell of his belly, his beautiful dick, the first dick he'd really _looked_ at. Different than Sam's, a bit shorter, but thicker, with a slight purplish flush over to the head that Sam couldn't wait to get his tongue on. He wanted his mouth all over Dean, wanted to bite him, and lick him, and...Sam shuddered, his hand slid down between his legs to cup his balls, squeezing just a little as he looked his fill at Dean. 

Sam was sure that compared to Dean, so fucking comfortable in his skin, he must look ridiculous; his shirt stuck over his wrists where it'd got caught when he tried to yank it off, his feet stuck in his pants, and his dick waving in the wind. Or maybe not, because Dean was looking at him like he was delicious, like something he couldn't wait to eat.

"Damn. Knew you'd be a big boy, Sam. Come here. Let me help you get the rest of your clothes off." Sam fell back on the bed, furiously trying to shake his pants off. He'd freed one foot when he froze; was that Dean _giggling?_

It was a such weird sound coming out of him, completely at odds with the person Sam thought his brother to be, but there was something about that helpless little giggle that just turned Sam on even more. That, and the way his eyes crinkled, his tongue slid between his teeth, was totally, fucking, unbearably _hot._

Dean leaned back on the bed, legs splayed, beautiful dick and balls on display. Sam swallowed, licked his lips. He could do this. He would do this. He got to his knees and inched forward until he was between Dean's knees. His hands slid up Dean's muscular thighs, inch by inch. They were shaking, but Sam wasn't going to stop, not now that he'd finally gotten what he wanted. Dean groaned quietly, but put his hands over Sam's, stopping him. "You don't have to, Sam you need to be sure—are you sure?"

"Oh yeah, I'll probably be terrible at this, but I really do want to get my mouth on you…."

Dean flushed, a deep red from cheeks to chest. His eyes fell closed in a long, languid blink, and Sam thought how beautiful he looked like that, lashes thick enough to cast shadows on his cheeks. When he opened his eyes again, he sighed. "Then please do, Sammy. There's nothing I want more."

Sam wrapped his lips around Dean, gagging a little, trying to coordinate sucking and licking with breathing—sometimes he couldn't quite manage to do all at once, so there were moments when it was spectacularly bad. He grazed Dean with teeth once or twice, and Dean whimpered, but he kept encouraging Sam, praising him, and each word of praise, each moan, made Sam's dick jump. He was a leaking, drooling mess, and so fucking hard, just from blowing Dean, he wasn't sure if he'd come without a touch. He loved the heat and the weight on his tongue, the feel of Dean's skin, the way the crown bumped and slid over his lips—Sam loved it _all,_ and couldn't wait for Dean to do it to him. 

He drew back, hollowing his cheeks as he went, looking up the length of Dean's body and thought, 'all that is mine, and I'm going to explore every fucking bit of it.'

Dean shuddered as Sam swallowed around him. He moaned, "Sam, Sam, gonna come, you need to back off, now, dude—"

 _Fuck that._ Sam lunged forward, forcing as much of Dean down as he could without triggering his gag reflex. Dean arched off the bed, letting out a yell, his dick swelled in Sam's mouth, jerked as he came, straight down Sam's throat. It was surprising, but not bad. He could get used to it. 

Sam held Dean in his mouth through the aftershocks, humming lightly, until Dean gently pushed him off. 

"I didn't want to do that your first time, I'm sorry, are you—"

He licked his lips, and leaned forward, waiting for Dean to either kiss him or push him away. Dean leaned right into Sam, and caught him up in a sweet, careful kiss, mindful of Sam's swollen mouth. Sam said, "I am perfect. Now, if you wouldn't mind," he said and gestured to his now painfully-hard dick. 

Dean smiled and pulled Sam up on the bed, settling him right in his lap. "I'd love to help," he said, and wrapped his hand around Sam's dick. He squeezed him, and then slowly drew his hand upwards, tightly enough to send shivers racing through Sam, making his breath catch with how good it felt. "How about," Dean whispered into Sam's ear, "we start with me showing you how good a handjob can be, and go from there?"

~o0o~

Two days later, with the paper full of the news that the epidemic seemed to have ended, and Asher happily sitting at the Starlight Inn's check-in counter with his brother and his mom, The Winchesters pulled out of town. Sam couldn't help smiling at Dean, and Dean—he kept his eyes on the road, but kept one hand on Sam's thigh, a warm grip that made Sam feel like the world was his.

"That was the way a case should end, right?" Dean said. "Everything tied up all neat and nice, happy people, and a hell of a celebration afterwards."

"Oh yeah. You can't argue with a happy ending." Sam looked over at Dean, and blushed, "So what comes next? Does this mean more cases in my future?"

"Sam, I can't see any way that we can let you go back to Cali. Not now, not with that—that demon still out there, and not with the perpetrator of this evil still gunning for you. I'm sorry."

"Well...I figured that. But I'm not all that worried, because it's like you said, Dean. You and me, we make a hell of a team."

Dean glanced over at Sam, a smile lighting up his whole face. "We do, Sammy. That we do."

FIN


End file.
